


blue moon hotel & observatory

by ecorone



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: AND GAY, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hardboiled, M/M, Medium Burn, Season/Series 03, Smoking, inaugural jim roast 1988, is how i like me eggs, mild blood kink, motorcycle safety violations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-06-15 03:49:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15404298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecorone/pseuds/ecorone
Summary: Private detective Jim Gordon takes on his latest client: a hotel owner whose daughter has been abducted by her ex-boyfriend. It's all set to be his simplest case yet... until Victor Zsasz steals a cigarette.





	1. manticora

**Author's Note:**

> ***SPOILERS LEADING UP TO BEGINNING OF S3-ISH***
> 
> \- set in may of 1988  
> \- jim is out of blackgate and working as a PI instead of a bounty hunter  
> \- updates every monday, barring catastrophe

Six minutes. 

That’s how long it takes Jim Gordon to give up studying the painting. He’s never studied - or pretended to study - any piece of artwork for that long. Not even on his past trips to the Gotham City Museum of Modern Art. It’s a classical sort of painting with a stormy-skied battle scene going on. There’s a knight in full armor. There’s the beast he’s fighting: a huge lion with a humanoid face and the tail of a scorpion, poised to strike. And there’s a lady looking on, her long dark mane flowing in the wind. 

Eight minutes. 

That’s the time setting of the automatic air freshener mounted on the ceiling. Every eight minutes, the air freshener releases a spritz of hotel-standard “ocean” fragrance that smells nothing like the ocean.

Eleven minutes.

That’s how late Jim’s client is when he walks in. Leonid Shirman, owner and manager of Seaview Hotel, goes in for a handshake and says, “Welcome to Seaview Hotel, Mr. Gordon.” 

Shirman pronounces Gordon ‘Gordone’, like ‘Falcone’, but Jim doesn’t bother to correct him. He's more interested in what’s tucked under the hotel owner’s arm: a manila folder, pristine saved for the finger-worried corners.

At Shirman’s prompting, Jim takes a seat opposite from him at the large mahogany desk. Shirman sets the folder upon the desk and folds his hands over it. His brown eyes, made rectangular by a drooping fold of skin over each eyelid, study the private detective he’s hired. He has a rounded, strong forehead, thick silvering eyebrows, and thin yet protruding lips. His nose is regal with a sharp, downward-pointing tip like an arrowhead. 

He explains: “I apologize for my tardiness. One of my night receptionists called out sick.”

Jim excuses him, but Shirman continues: “I had to reprimand him, of course. He’s not really sick. Just isn’t serious about the job. Too cocky. Always flirting with customers. Fine. I have the feeling he will soon no longer be my problem. He recently asked to reduce to part-time. Cannot handle the stress, he says. Well, I already have interviewed some nice young ladies to replace him. People should see a pretty woman when they walk in, yes? Not a...” He waves a hand in the air as if banishing a tiny apparition of the troublesome receptionist.

As Shirman was talking, Jim’s attention had slid to the small figurine upon the desk, that of a puffin with beady black eyes and a flag painted on its belly.

“You like the puffin?” Shirman nods at him. “It’s from Iceland. Beautiful country. My daughter couldn’t go with me when I went, but she loves to travel. Do you have children?”

Jim looks away from the puffin. “No.”

“Make sure you have them soon, yes? Don’t be like me. I was 51 when my daughter was born - can you believe it? Her whole life, she’s only known me as an old man.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Evgeniya Leonidovna Shirman. 18 years old.” He pronounces her name as if attempting to summon her into appearance. “She calls herself Genie, sometimes,” he adds with distaste. From the folder on the desk he produces two photographs, which he lays out to face Jim. “This is she.” He straightens the photo so that its long and short edges run perfectly parallel and perpendicular to the desk’s edges.

Jim leans over the photo. Genie has the same rounded forehead as her father, but the arrowhead nose is narrower and the eyebrows are delicately arched. Her small face is dwarfed by a shock of dark curly hair. She’s smiling, but her eyes are sad, and she’s staring beyond the photographer, into the distance. Jim fights a creeping urge to look over his shoulder. 

“Recent photo?”

“Yes. It was taken two months ago.” He taps the second photo. “And this is the man who abducted her. Felipe Rosales. Ex-boyfriend,” he sniffs. 

Felipe Rosales isn’t smiling in Shirman’s choice of photo. He has long hair, red roses tattooed on his neck. and about a dozen facial piercings. 

“Before my daughter was abducted, I found acceptance letters from Cornell and NYU in her trash. And I’m certain there were others. I’ll never understand how my daughter got mixed up with this low person.”

“Have you brought this matter to the police?”

Before Shirman can answer, his digital watch goes off with a beeping alarm. “My apologies. It’s time for my vitamins.” 

He opens his desk drawer and removes four bottles of supplements. Gesturing to each of the bottles, he explains, “Ginkgo biloba, ginseng, rosemary, and… gotu kola.” He has to read that last one off the label. “Good for the mind.”

A faint herbal smell is released into the air as he takes his supplements. After he’s done, he asks, “Sorry, what were you saying before?”

“Did you tell the police about Genie?”

“Ah, right. They dropped the case. Said it was a civil matter and there’s nothing they can do,” he says with an air of having repeated that sentence to himself many times before. He glares down at the image of Felipe Rosales, hating it with his eyes. “I hope you do not take offense - I know you used to be GCPD - but… the police, they don’t know what they are doing.”

Jim flashes a tight smile. “None taken.”

“And, with all of the murders, this case is of no importance is comparison. Do they think, because she has turned eighteen, that she is not my concern anymore? Sometimes I really don’t understand this country.” He shakes his head. “They don’t know what I know: that she does not love _him_.”

“How do you know?” 

Shirman grips the edge of the desk and leans forward. There’s a muscle in his jaw trying to work its way out. “Mr. Gordon, do you want this job or not? Yes? Good. Then let’s accept what I said. Now. They were last seen together at Blue Moon Hotel & Observatory. You know of it?”

Jim frowns. “The new place on 34th and Vine?”

“Yes, that one. Some young Australian hooligan with no taste thinks he can just”- another dismissive hand wave- “start whatever business. I’m telling you now, that hotel won’t last half a year. Not to mention, he doesn’t have the morals to be a pillar of the community.” 

Jim nods half-heartedly. “Right. Well, I’d best get started.” The not-ocean fragrance is giving him a headache. 

Shirman collects the two photos and returns them to the manila folder, which he pushes over to Jim. “This is all of the evidence I’ve collected personally. I believe you will need it.”

 _All the evidence you withheld from the police_ , Jim thinks as he accepts the folder. “I’ll find your daughter.”

“Please do.” Shirman reaches into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a cash-stuffed envelope, which he places upon the desk. “Half up front. You get the other half when you bring her back.”

Jim bristles. “That’s not the deal.”

“Detective Gordon, I honestly do trust your abilities. But I’ve done research of my own, and what I found is… you have been hungry for real work lately.” He raises his eyebrows meaningfully and pushes the envelope forward. “Unless you would rather be following around the cheating wives and husbands?”

Jim stands up in a gruff but accepts the envelope. He unclenches his jaw to say, “And if she’s halfway around the world by now?”

“I assure you, your travel expenses will be reimbursed.”

Before Jim leaves, he faces the painting one last time. Knight. Beast. Lady. From here, he can see that the frame is bordered by a much larger rectangle of cleaner paint on the wall behind it. Within the clean rectangle, towards the top and center, lies a small dot of slightly off-shade paint.

Jim pauses in the doorway to say, “Does she have any friends or family who may be sheltering her?”

Shirman’s face closes like a book. “No no no, I told you, her ex-boyfriend abducted her. And she’s an only child, no siblings. I’ll walk you to the front door.”


	2. piezoelectricity

Everyone Jim passes has a nose tucked into the collar of their shirt. Breathing is not ideal today, on account of the real ocean smell. The marina is unusually pungent, as if Satan and his sulfurous squad have just washed ashore in Gotham City.

Jim's black 1979 Pontiac Trans Am is undamaged and exactly where he left it, because this is uptown Gotham. He would have driven straight to Blue Moon Hotel & Observatory, but he’s hurting for his three o’clock whiskey. And his apartment is on the way. Sort of. He just has to double back to the hotel located on the border of purgatory and hell - that is, between midtown and downtown.

The rain doesn’t wait for him to get home. It starts off as a polite, keep-your-car-clean sprinkle. By the time he’s back in his borough, the downpour has made one large pond out of Gotham. It’s enough precipitation to keep the words “record-long dry spell” out of everyone’s mouth until the next record-long dry spell. 

On a day like this, the closest parking spot he can find is two blocks away. His clothes take all that water to his apartment on the second floor. Then comes the battle of his wet key versus the decrepit lock cylinders of his front door.

Keys, wallet, and phone get tossed onto the kitchen counter. Jim strips down to his wife beater and briefs and flings his wet clothes over a dining chair that’s already busy. He’s welcomed home by the sound of his neighbor’s multitone car alarm going off.

His pack of cigarettes was ruined in the rain, so he opens a fresh pack. He had quit for Barbara, quit again for Lee, and sees no further torture in his future. When he lights up, the car alarm stops, and there’s a fleeting moment of silence in between the howl of police sirens.

He’s pouring himself some whiskey when six sharp knocks rattle his door.

He makes it halfway to the door before doubling back to chuck on a pair of gray sweatpants. Once decent, he returns to the door. His new place doesn’t have a peep hole. Not that he ever bothered with the one at his old place. 

He opens the door.

His hand reaches for a phantom gun. 

Victor Zsasz stands before him with the Victorian politeness of a noble-born vampire. He is taller than usual. The inverted triangle of his black-clad torso blots out the hallways’ harsh lighting. His eyes are two large black circles ringed by white. Fresh raindrops glisten on his scalp and the tips of his ears. He does not smile in greeting. He sweeps a neutral gaze up and down Jim’s form.

Jim does not notice that the cigarette has fallen from his mouth until Victor catches it with two fingers - deftly, without disturbing the burning end. 

Victor takes a long, cheek-hollowing drag. He does not speak until after he has expelled a complete lungful of smoke into Jim’s face. “Relax, Jim. I’m not here to kill you.” 

Jim stands his ground, but his arms make their way into a folded shape that guards his chest. A pose that perks up his arm muscles. Victor’s mouth twitches into a flat line.

“Then what are you doing here?” Jim says, voice sinking into a growl.

“Ooh, the cop voice,” Victor says, pleased. Another deep drag, but this time he blows the smoke out of his nose instead of at Jim’s face. “To answer your question… in TV shows, people always show up unannounced at other people’s doorsteps. I wanted to see what would happen if I did.”

“Alright. Let me show you.” 

Jim moves to slam the door. 

Victor darts in through the narrow gap between Jim’s body and the door. He doesn’t bump into anything. He’s a breeze of smoke and leather.

Jim tips his head back and doesn’t budge until all of his arguments have met the ceiling. Only then does he remember to close the door. Victor is slinking around like he's the building owner - silently, too, in spite of the the skull-stomping boots strapped onto his feet. Jim’s eyes track his every move. Daring him to try something. Anything worth a punch to the nose.

Victor doesn’t have to saunter far to find a makeshift ashtray. There’s one on the kitchen counter next to Jim’s car key. After knocking off some ash, he brings the cigarette up to admire the ember nibbling the paper in a spiral path. The tiny volcano of a cherry already re-forming, twitching and alive. Its soft crackling sounds are drowned out by traffic noise, by waves of cars rushing past. 

“Ah. That was you circling around looking for parking,” Victor thinks aloud as he meanders over to the coffee table. “Didn’t peg you for a Firebird person. Primo model. Only, too bad about the small trunk. I could fit, maybe, one person _your_ size, intact. Max.”

Jim's coffee table is more paper than table. A fossil record of unsorted mail. Victor flicks his fingers across the topmost layer, unsettling several envelopes which, in a domino effect, start pushing the edgemost envelopes to the floor. 

When the final envelope has fallen, Victor does a slow spin on his heels until he’s facing the glowering detective. “Something wrong?” He regards Jim through satisfied curls of smoke.

Jim works his jaw open. “No.” He stares past Victor at the trash can overflowing with old takeout containers and finds himself saying, “It’s… it’s just weird to see and hear another person in here. I don’t have guests over. Unless you count the black mold in the bathroom.”

Victor _hmm_ s at the armchair and its naturalized pile of not-clean-but-not-dirty clothes. A final, French inhale, and he stubs out the cigarette. “Oh, Jamie. You’re not doing so well, are you?” 

Jim doesn’t punch him.

A moment passes.

Jim still hasn’t punched him. 

Victor’s peering at Jim with a quirked brow. 

At last, Jim lets his shoulders drop an inch. “You want anything to drink?” he asks, because one of them has got to have some manners.

Victor blinks at him owlishly. He starts chewing over the question as if it were an existential one.

Jim braces himself for an outlandish request. _Cherry juice with Jagermeister. Room temperature black coffee. Human blood._ That last idea is a rush of heat - in his head, he’s baring his neck to Victor Fucking Zsasz-

The assassin speaks: “Do you have any chocolate milk?”

Jim shakes his head for two reasons. “I’ll make you an Old Fashioned,” comes his gruff reply. 

He starts a new cigarette and goes to the kitchen and starts preparing the drink. The layer of dust covering the kitchen’s unused surfaces seems thicker than before. A calm settles over him as he’s muddling fruit into sugar and bitters the “right way”, the way Harvey taught him.

He returns to the living room holding Victor’s drink and his own whiskey on the half-melted rocks. Victor is sprawled out on the armchair the wrong way - back propped up against the armrest and limbs draped over the side. They’re nice legs. Long and well thought-out. And the trousers fitted snugly over them? Deliberate as hell. 

While Jim downs a generous, fiery swallow of his own drink, Victor takes a tentative sip of the Old Fashioned. 

“It’s good.” Another sip, this time less delicate. “I heard you were working a case.”

Jim rolls his eyes with his whole head. “What do you want?”

“I want to help you.” His mouth snicks into a smile.

“Out of the kindness of your heart, I suppose?”

Victor shifts in his seat so that his back sinks down lower and his legs spread out more. Smirking, he makes eye contact with Jim, who looks away quickly.

“I help you with your investigation,” Victor explains, “and you help me get my boss out of the petty charges the cops used to keep him in jail for the weekend.”

“And who’s your boss these days?”

“Uh, your friend? You know, about yea high”- he holds his hand out three feet from the floor- “hair like a dead crow, _aggressively_ sapiosexual-”

“Penguin,” Jim groans. His next thought is interrupted by the ring of his cell phone.

“Harvey,” Jim answers, and he starts to pace away from Victor even though the apartment is too small for even a daydream about privacy.

 _“Jimbo,”_ comes Harvey’s voice over traffic noises. _“I’m heading back to the station, but apparently Victor Zsasz showed up about twenty minutes ago - with a crew of, uh,_ anti-establishment women - _and tried to bust Penguin out of his holding cell.”_

Jim abandons his drink upon the kitchen counter. He tries to focus on his former partner’s words while keeping Victor in his line of sight. “Why’s Penguin in jail?” 

_“The second anniversary of his mother’s death is coming up.”_

“Right. There was that big spike in violent crime last year.”

_“Yeah. So we got him for littering after he threw a man out of a moving vehicle.”_ A pause, then he adds, _“The man was holding a six-pack of beer and the cans went everywhere.”_

“I see.”

_“Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up. I wouldn’t put it past Zsasz to swing by your place and try to force you into something. He hasn’t showed up, has he?”_

Victor has finished his drink and is now tracing his tongue in lazy circles around the rim of the glass.

Jim drags out, “No.”

_“Good. Do NOT make a deal with him. Barnes is in a shittastic mood and I have no leeway to - hey, fuck you! You’re lucky I’m busy! Not you, Jim. Fucking Audi driver’s got a death wish. Gotta go. Take care of yourself.”_

“I will. Thanks, Harv.” Jim flips his phone shut. The smile on his face fades as he strides back to his guest, who has moved on to testing the whiskey glass against his teeth.

Jim yanks the glass out of Victor’s hand. He slips into his cop voice: “Did you fail to get Penguin out of the cooler on purpose?” 

Victor‘s gaze follows the motion of the glass in Jim’s hand. “Look. I’m not Penguin, or Fish, or any of those... schemers. I don’t _do_ long cons. If I want something, I just... take it. Killers keepers.”

“Uh huh,” Jim says slowly. Speeding up, he adds, “I don’t want your help with the case. I keep my clients’ information in strict confidence. And I don’t trust you, regardless.”

Victor nods good-naturedly as if receiving constructive criticism. 

“But.” Jim draws a breath and expels it at the ceiling. “I’ve had a target on my back since I got out of prison. So I could use someone to watch me. In return, I’ll help you free Penguin.”

The assassin jumps to his feet - Jim steps back reflexively. 

Victor grins down at him with too many sharp white teeth. “How long will you require my services?”

“Until I’m done with this case. Don’t worry, it’s a straightforward one. I’ll close it before the weekend is over, and you can return to your, uh… day job. Night job.”

“Graveyard shift,” Victor cuts in.

“We start my thing first.”

“Not today. I’m busy. Call me tomorrow. _After_ Penguin’s out of the zoo.” He produces Jim’s phone from behind his back and fires out some digits in rapid T9 succession. Then he drops the phone in the air, forcing Jim to catch it with his free hand.

“Fine,” Jim grits out. “Tomorrow. You’re coming with me to a hotel.”

Victor’s face goes blank like a dead man’s. ”Bet you say that to all your bodyguards.”

Victor Zsasz leaves Jim’s apartment through the window. Jim checks the contacts list on his phone and confirms the latest entry: BURNER #818.


	3. gordon, gordoff

At the intersection of 34th Street and Vine Street, in the heart of the up-and-coming Narrowpike neighborhood, Blue Moon Hotel & Observatory shines like a new crown in a mouth full of rotting teeth. Its construction is modular in illusion, composed of a large central tower guarded and flanked by three smaller rotunda towers. Each of the glass spire-capped towers wears a face of silvery, mirror-like panels. The building’s base is flared, giving the hotel a winged look. Then, by the subtraction of interlocking brutalist blocks, the building narrows until it reaches story nine of its twenty-seven stories. From there and upward, it proceeds uniformly in width. 

Today, a small crowd has gathered on the sidewalk and street in front of the building. The people are armed with picket signs and chants. Many of the signs are crudely painted with the same emblem: a skinny fish underneath a blue equals sign, the lines of which are stylized like ocean waves.

Jim cuts through the crowd with machine-like efficiency, pausing only once to avoid being batted with a foam middle finger scrawled with “GENTRIFY THIS.”

Having successfully avoided eye contact with the protesters thus far, Jim doesn’t notice the wild-haired woman scuttling forward until she darts into his path and points a pamphlet at his chest like a sword. Her hair puffs out bigger as she cries, “ _We_ fed this land! Nourished its soil with our own blood! And now it’s going to make the elite even richer? Ha! I say, death to them! _The royalty must die!”_

The crowd blebs forward and engulfs her - in an instant, the peaceful protest dissolves into controversy and infighting. Something falls from the woman’s hand to the ground.

The pamphlet.

Jim picks it up as begrudgingly as possible and is yet more begrudging when there is no trash can in sight. He shoves the pamphlet into his pocket and pushes through the rotating door.

A pretty woman named Aisha sits at the front desk. She’s wearing her hair natural in an asymmetrical cut. She’s all bright colors in blue eyeshadow, gold medallion earrings, and a loose blouse the color of California poppy petals. Jim dials up a smile, introduces himself and asks to speak with the hotel owner. While she phones up the man, he paces away and waits at a distance that’s polite enough but still within earshot. 

“...Jim Gordon…” he hears her say into the receiver. “I’m not sure, but… Yes, actually, I think he is…. Okay. Okay, I’ll send him over. Buh bye.”

Upon white heels she clacks out from behind the desk. Her high-waisted orange skirt swishes about her knees.

“You’re in luck. He wants to meet you in his office. Right this way.”

* * *

Axl Teller’s in his mid- to late-twenties, Jim hazards, although his mustache screams, _I want you to think I’m older than I am._ He has big eyes, a big nose, and a small chin. His wavy brown hair goes down to the shoulders of his tan suit. 

After a brief introduction and exchange of pleasantries, Jim tells him, “I’d like to ask you some questions about one of your customers.”

The jovial glint in Teller’s eyes hardens, becomes flinty. He looks Jim up and down. He doesn’t like Jim’s state of dress and grooming: white T-shirt, blue jeans, leather jacket. Stubble threatening a scruff. Unstyled hair flopping to either or both sides of his head. 

“Are you a cop?” he asks without leaving space for Jim to answer. “When I saw your face, I thought you were a reporter. But now, looking at all of… _that”_ \- he waggles a hand at Jim’s general aura- “makes me almost certain you’re an undercover cop.”

“I’m not,” Jim replies, “undercover, and I’m not a cop.”

A smug grin spreads slowly over his face. “Then we’re done here, aren’t we? I don’t have to tell you anything. Besides, this is a place of discretion. What happens in Blue Moon stays in Blue Moon, as they say.”

 _As_ you _say,_ Jim thinks. “I’m a private detective. I’ll find what I need one way or another.”

Teller laughs. “Wow, so you’re like a Sherlock Holmes! I didn’t know they had those in real life. Good on you.” A small frown sinks his mouth. “But… you’ve come to my hotel asking questions like you’re writing a book. Let me guess, Leonid Shirman sent you.” Taking Jim’s silence as a yes, he shakes his head. “I’m just trying to do my thing over here and make dreams come true. Did he call himself a ‘pillar of the community’ when you talked to him? I’ll bet anything he did. Ironic, considering he...” Catching himself, he shakes his head. “It’s just ironic.”

Mind filling in the blanks, Jim says, “He just wants to find his daughter. Evgeniya, or Genie. You seen her?”

Teller stifles a yawn. “I’ll think about it.” He saunters over to the window overlooking the main entrance below. 

Jim wants to grab his shoulders and yell, _What is there to think about?_ Instead, he follows him over to the window. 

Looking down at the protesters below, Teller remarks, “Gothamites are pretty uptight, aren’t they? People don’t really protest back in Perth. Weather keeps ‘em happy.”

“Why are they protesting your establishment in particular?” 

“Beats me,” Teller scoffs. “As if I’m the problem. I’m just as subject to the, uh”- he waves a hand in the air -“same forces at play here. If these people are so afraid of gentrification - well, there’s an easy solution. Do some crime. You know, a little bit of crime, enough to keep the rent prices down. Not exactly a hard concept, this being Gotham City and all.” 

He chuckles without irony, then turns abruptly to Jim. “I’ve thought about it. I can’t tell you if Shirman’s daughter ever checked in, or if I’ve ever seen her around here.” There’s a sly tilt to his smile, as if he’s inviting a bribe, which Jim ignores. “That’s not the kind of product I’m selling. An ethos you’re familiar with, eh, James Gordon? Or should I say, The Little Copper That Couldn’t Be Bought.”

“So you do know who I was.”

“Who you _are,”_ Teller says, and if he had a pair of sunglasses handy he would have flipped them on. “But I can help you out with some advice: don’t get suckered into Shirman’s family-guy bullshit. He’s not a good person. And he’s a homophobe.”

“How do you know?”

“Come on. He’s an old cunt from the USSR. That’s all you need to know.” He claps Jim on the shoulder. “Honestly, I think I’ve out-detectived you here. Now. I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave. Unless you’d like to be our guest, that is…?”

“I’m gone,” Jim says gruffly. “Thanks for the chat. But do me one last favor, would ya?”

Teller raises an eyebrow. “Sure.”

Jim slaps a pamphlet into Teller’s hand. “Throw this away for me.”

* * *

At the GCPD station, Jim butters up Harvey Dent to get him to appeal to Barnes’s sense of justice. No precedent to keep someone in jail indefinitely for littering, and other legal stuff that Jim’s too distracted to note - he’s full up of stares from his former colleagues. He sees himself out of the building before Barnes can boot him. When Oswald walks free, he spots Jim around the corner and gapes at the former detective. Like he’s done sums in his head and is shocked at the numbers that come out. 

Jim calls Victor once and only once. The call goes to voicemail. He deletes “BURNER #818” from his contacts. 

For the rest of the day, he browses through public records and tails some leads - Genie’s friends and acquaintances - which turn out to be dead ends. It’s past sunset when he gets back home. The apartment is empty. Not that he anticipated otherwise. It still smells of ghosts, and of his vices, but different somehow. He pours himself a drink and pores over the contents of Shirman’s evidence folder under the ugly yellow light of an ugly brass lamp. 

The “evidence” is mostly junk, as expected. A handful of ticket stubs, receipts, and other mementos of dates. There’s also a series of love letters written to Genie, but half of the letters aren’t even dated. The most recent letter, the one ending the series, was written by Genie to Felipe, but she had crumpled it up instead of mailing it. Some of its words had been redacted with passionate scribbles.

_May 12, 1988_

_Felipe,_

_I’m sorry for not writing sooner. What your work has you doing lately… it’s frightening, honestly. You’ve kept me at a distance to keep me safe, but I guess it’s distance that’s killing us, in the end. I’ve been struggling to find a good way to tell you my truth. But there’s no good way, so here it goes: I have fallen in love with a woman. She has helped me become my authentic self, and I can only hope to do the same for her. In two weeks we are to be married in a secret ceremony. The ceremony is for us ~~because~~ ~~regardless of~~ because fuck the state. We’ll be leaving for our honeymoon the day after and saying goodbye to Gotham for good._

_I would wish you the best, but such a sentiment is wasted upon you. I don’t expect I will ever see you again. After all, I am no longer the person you fell in love with, and neither are you._

_Give my regards to Devon & Delilah._

_Genie_

Jim sets the letter down. His head is alit with a low, buzzing ache - he had neglected to drink much water that day and is neglecting to make up for it now. It was one thing to track down Genie, he thinks. But suppose, in the end, the case hinged on whether or not she loved Felipe Rosales, loved him enough to escape her father for him…?

_She doesn’t love him._

Shirman’s words tramp through his head, startling out memories of big brown eyes and foxlike smiles. Jim drowns them - drowns her - with the rest of his whiskey. His mind is clear now. By his estimation, he has about six days to find Genie, catch her in Gotham before she takes off to Switzerland or whatever country attracts the wealthy youth these days. It’s enough of a plan for Jim to let himself go to bed.

He lies awake for two hours.

He doesn’t fall asleep until after he has re-entered Victor’s phone number from memory.


	4. go the spoils

Jim wakes up by the same manner as any other weekday morning: to his upstairs neighbor’s alarm clock going off repeatedly between 5:30am to 6:30am. He spends the morning scouting areas where Genie might hold a goddamn “secret ceremony.” Noontime finds him waiting in line at a falafel stand outside of the very much public Gotham City courthouse. On a whim, he asks the stand owner if he’s seen Genie Shirman. The man tells Jim that Genie is one of his regular customers and that she occasionally brings her friend along. Her friend’s name? 

“Mike Mallory,” states the falafel man. “Or Mark Mallory? Something Mallory, for sure. He’s the cool cat who works at the new hotel.”

Jim thanks him and takes off without ordering.

* * *

Jim waits by a traffic light pole whose base is blackened by years of dog urine. The sky is heavy with water, drizzle turning into hard rain.

He crosses the street to reach the building that towers over its crooked neighbors. Blue Moon Hotel & Observatory is free of any protesters today. There’s a black-clad phantom waiting for him under the awning. He raises a fingerless glove-covered hand in greeting.

Jim wordlessly gestures for Victor to follow him into the building, but Victor stops him before he gets to the rotating door. “Are you sure you want to be seen with me?” 

Jim looks at him pointedly.

“Right. Spirit damaged by prison, on a path of self-destruction, et cetera, et cetera.” 

Jim starts toward the door again. Victor steps in front of him. “I only asked because, well, I’d rather not be seen with you - inside the hotel, anyway.”

Jim rolls his eyes. “Stay. Right. Here.”

“Won’t go anywhere. Assassin’s honor.”

Jim rotates into the building. He heads toward the front desk, but before the attendant can notice him, the desk phone rings. The young man’s hand shoots out to pick up the receiver immediately. Like a frog catching a fly. A frog with years of customer service training. 

In one breath, he recites, “Thank you for calling Sea- I mean, Blue Moon Hotel & Observatory - this is Mark - how may I help you?” His phone voice is well-honed, calm and pleasant.

Jim approaches the edge of the desk. Mark Mallory, as confirmed by his nametag, is the receptionist. A handsome young man with the cheeks of a teenager and the eyes of a forty year old.

“I’m afraid that pets are not allowed, but you’re welcome to bring your service an…” Mark trails off once he notices Jim’s presence. His face whitens in apparent recognition of Jim. His grip on the receiver goes slack.

 _“Hello?”_ comes a female voice from the speaker.

Mark hangs up without saying goodbye to the customer. He offers a trembling smile.

“Did you almost say Seaview Hotel?” Jim asks, by way of greeting.

“N-no.” Mark’s face is contorting like his features are at war with one another.

“I’d like to ask you some questions, if you can spare a minute.”

“I-I have the right to remain silent!”

Jim frowns. “I’m not a police officer,” he states, but the boy either can’t hear him or doesn’t want to.

“Anything I say can and will be used against m-me in a court of law.” He’s shaking like an off-balance washing machine. He stares past Jim’s head, far into the distance. “I have the right to an attorney. If-if I cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for me.”

Jim raises his voice: “You’re not under arrest.” 

He can do nothing but stand there while Mark finishes reading himself his Miranda warning. 

“Do I understand the rights I have just read to me?” Mark is yelling at this point. “With these rights in mind, do I wish to speak to me?”

A small crowd of people has gathered around and behind Jim.

“Mark,” Jim tries, in the most calming tone he can muster. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk to me. Nothing’s gonna happen to you.”

Mark falls quiet, but his lips are moving almost imperceptibly. He’s mouthing a chant to himself, over and over. Something with three syllables.

“I’m leaving now,” Jim says slowly. “Alright?” He takes a step back.

“Face your fears,” Mark whispers. “Face your fears. Face your fears.” His eyes lock into Jim.

Jim, backing away, lifts his open hands to show he is unarmed - in that same moment, Mark’s hand thrusts behind him into the waistband of his slacks.

_Well, shit._

A woman screams.

The sound of two gunshots, one after the other, reverberates through the foyer. Jim drops to the ground.

A stampede of people crying out and fleeing. 

Jim rolls forward so he doesn’t get trampled. He tucks himself against the front wall of the desk, underneath the overhanging lip of the counter. Mark was clumsy, didn’t account for recoil and missed him completely.

“Where did you go?” Mark calls out. His voice is now steady but deranged, a sing-song growl.

Jim crawls on the floor along the desk, following its curve to the side until he’s within reach of Mark’s legs. Mark, gun in hand, leans over the edge of the desk and peers down where Jim had been. 

The foyer is empty. 

Jim jumps up behind Mark and grabs the handgun out of his sweaty grip before the boy can even turn around. Mark lets out a startled yelp. At the sight of Jim, his face drains of color, and he scrambles to run away. In that instant, two security guards rush in on the two of them. 

_Conveniently after the boy was disarmed_ , Jim grumbles to himself.

Jim tries to slip out, but the head security guard detains him and, in front of the other security guards, makes a show of telling him off for his “dangerous” stunt. Jim remains close-lipped the whole time. After that, guard calls in the incident, and Jim has to stay and give a statement to the two young beat cops that report to the scene. Thankfully, neither of them recognize him. 

Before Jim leaves the building, he spares a dismayed glance behind him at his best lead, now inaccessible in the hands of the GCPD. Mark is handcuffed and catatonic.

The rainshower had stopped while Jim was inside - a momentary ceasefire. He’s walking past the alley by the hotel when a hand clamps over his mouth and an arm locks his own arms to his body - he’s being dragged into the shadowed alley mouth, and fast. He stomps at a foot but only catches ground. He tries to twist himself away, weaponizing his elbows - and then, he’s free. His attacker spits him out like he didn’t like the taste of him.

“Hiya, Jamie. Heard shots fired.”

“You,” Jim groans. And then, more heatedly, “Where did you go? I could have died in there.” He gestures in the direction of the hotel.

“We both know that’s not true.” Victor makes almost perfect circles of his eyes at Jim. “Now. What happened?”

“Mark Mallory happened. He’s the day receptionist for Blue Moon, and - I suspect - the night receptionist for Seaview. He had some sort of nervous breakdown in there and tried to shoot me. I think he thought I was a cop that was out to get him.”

“Mark Mallory,” Victor repeats. Intrigued, as if he’s learning the first words of a new language. “Do you want me to… _take care of him?”_ He draws a finger across his neck to mimic slitting a throat.

“No,” Jim says quickly. “There will be no ‘taking care’ of Mark. And, as long as you’re with me, you’re going to report to me without telling me more than I want to know.”

Victor opens his mouth to voice his confusion, but Jim cuts him off with, “What were you doing while I was inside?”

“Feeding your parking meter,” he replies without missing a beat.

“There was no meter where I parked.”

Jim stares at Victor’s mouth. There’s a speck of blood on his lower lip. There’s no light in his black button eyes. A fat drop of water splashes onto Jim’s forehead. More drops on the concrete. The second wave.

“You can’t seriously think that I had anything to do with that fucking _amateur._ If I’d ever wanted… if I wanted to kill you today, you’d be dead yesterday. And I’d do it,” Victor licks his lower lip, tasting blood, “personally.” 

“I don’t know what else to think,” Jim shoots back. Victor may have called Jim’s bluff, but the fact remains that his case is sick. It’s mutating - nay, degenerating into something else.

“You trusted me enough to let me in. To make a deal with me.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that was already too much!”

Rain lashes at both of their bodies, but Jim is catching more of it. The sheets of water are vengeful like angels cast out of heaven.

Victor backs down first.

“Are you hungry? Because I know this great pizza place that’s co-owned by Willem Dafoe.”

“No.” A raindrop splashes into Jim’s eye and stings the way water should not. Victor’s form blurs. He blinks it away.

He starts walking.

Victor doesn’t follow. “Where are you going?” 

Jim answers, “Seaview Hotel,” while resisting the urge to turn his head. “You’re not coming,” he adds, not as a command but as a statement of fact.

“You’re right I’m not. No way am I stepping foot in that place.”

Jim takes a breath. “I think we’re in agreement. It’s best if I get through this weekend alone.”

No reply.

Jim looks over his shoulder: Victor is already gone.

* * *

Jim’s phone rings while he’s driving home. It’s a number he does not recognize besides the Gotham area code. 

“Gordon,” he answers. 

_”Jaaames Gordon,”_ comes a familiar drawl. _“Axl Teller here. Remember me?”_

“Mm.”

 _“I just wanted to call and personally apologize for the actions of our former employee, Mark Mallory.”_ His delivery is more halting and robotic, giving Jim the impression that Teller is reading off of a piece of paper, but only intermittently, as if he’s convinced he doesn’t need to refer to it. _“He’s since been, erm,_ taken care of, _and I can assure you that there will be no repeat of such an incident.”_

Jim blinks. _Surely he wasn’t…?_ He puts that thought on ice. “Good. Thanks for calling.” 

He’s about hang up when Axl hurries to continue with, _“Hang on, mate, hang on! I understand that the incident may have, erm, put you in a negative emotional state. And that such a negative emotional state may, erm, convince you to speak negatively of my establishment. As such, I’d like to offer you a free overnight stay at Blue Moon.”_

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

_“Two nights. Two rooms each night. Penthouse.”_

“I live in Gotham. There’s no need.”

_“Ah, but you’ll be way more comfortable here, I promise you! C’mon, Jim. Take it easy for once, huh? Come and stay with us - you can always check out, if you don’t like it. And! I’ll throw in unlimited drinks and unlimited access to the observatory - on the house. That’s a $516 dollar value, all together.”_

Jim sighs. “Fine. Just don’t call me again.”

Teller chuckles. _“See you soon. Bring your slam piece.”_ He hangs up before Jim can fight him through the phone.


	5. after dark

There’s no good reason to go to New Jersey.

But Shirman’s ex-wife, Lyubov, insisted on talking in person. So, like everyone else on that overcast afternoon, Jim crawls west. He’s but one link in the long chain of cars stretching through Holland Tunnel. He has half a mind to abandon his car and start walking.

By the time he pulls up at the curb of the small house in Livingston, he’s seriously considering going back to being stared at on public transit. 

Lyubov and an obese cream-colored cat welcome him inside. Lyubov has 74 years of age and looks every one of them, if not more. Her hair is box-dyed blond with silver-white root growth. She’s wearing a fuzzy wooly cardigan, a long-skirted navy blue dress, two pearl earrings, and faded pink slippers. 

The house is untidy but not dirty. There’s a potted plant here and there in the corner and hanging from the ceiling. It smells faintly of sausage and lavender. She leads him into the living room, which is dominated by a large Persian rug covering the wall, and has him sit on a velveteen purple sofa. The cat waddles over and meows at him as if he, a human, must know where the food is hidden.

She offers him tea. He declines politely. She goes to start it anyway.

While they’re waiting for the water to boil, their conversation turns to Jim’s life and work, with Lyubov seeming to take a genuine interest. Upon the whistle of the tea kettle, she excuses herself to the kitchen, cat whining at her heels. 

She returns with a tray of loose leaf-infused tea, rinsed strawberries, toothpick-speared slices of chicken apple sausage, and some ring-shaped crackers Jim has never seen before. At her insistence, he eats one slice of sausage. Then he tries one bite of cracker, which turns out to be very hard and dry. The crumbs end up on his lap and on the shag carpet.

Naturally, this is the moment Lyubov offers to answer Jim’s questions.

Jim tries to swallow the rest of the cracker before speaking. Tea helps. “Leonid’s daughter with his second wife. Name is Evgeniya. Do you know her?”

In a neutral tone, she replies, “No. She has never contacted me, and I have never contacted her. Good for him, that he found a woman who could give him children when I could not.”

“Did you have any children with Shirman?”

“I-I told you, I was infertile.”

“I know what you told me,” Jim says quietly.

She regards him over her teacup. “Yes. We had a son. We adopted him in different country, and he ran away while we were getting divorced.”

“Leonid said she had no siblings.”

“This is true, in a way. The boy surely never met Evgeniya. But even so, to this day - to this day! - Leonid will deny that he was ever part of our family. It’s not the kind of thing you can forget. I fear that he must… must have raised her under the shadow of the boy.”

“What was your son’s name? Where did you adopt him?”

She gives him a long look. “That boy has done some very bad things. Some things Leonid and I covered up. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to tell you all. If you are as good detective as they say, you probably can figure it out yourself. And if you have half as much, _eto_ … ah, _integrity_ as I think you do, you will leave me and my family out of this. I am too old for you to be in here digging up ghosts.”

Jim nods. “Thank you for the tea.”

* * *

Streetlamps cast Jim’s shadow long. He’s returning home at night, coat collar turned up against the wet wind and the steam rising from manholes. 

Back inside his apartment, he flicks the light switch, but the light doesn’t come on. His next-door neighbor must’ve had a relapse and gone back to the hair dryer. 

He’s just about to head out to check the breaker panel when a blunt object catches the back of his head. He rolls into his fall and manages to dodge both the foot and the pinpoint stars that come flying at him. He scrambles across the living room by feel - muscle memory takes him around the laundry basket that lives in the middle of the room. From behind him comes a crashing noise and expletives.

Muted streetlight leaking in through the window throws a second shadowy figure into relief. He’s a big guy, and he’s blocking Jim’s way to the bedroom. 

The first attacker sweeps up to them in his ankle-length duster. Jim grabs the empty beer bottle he knows is on the kitchen counter. Just as Big Guy lunges for Jim, Jim swings at him with the bottle. He catches Jim’s wrist - Jim kicks him in the gut and then pivots around in time to bottle Duster. The bottle shatters against his ear, which Jim isn’t sorry about. 

Big Guy makes another grab for Jim, but Jim ducks off to the side, toward the wall. Duster screeches in shock and anger from where he’s crumpled to the floor. Jim dodges Big Guy’s punch - his fist connects with the wall - and gets him with a combination left hook-right uppercut. Big Guy goes down. 

Duster’s back up. “You _crumb!”_ he screams at Jim. “You fucked up my Cartier diamond drop earring.” Blood shines down the side of his face and neck. A diamond drop-less earring hook hangs red from his earlobe.

“Guess Cartier ain’t much for quality.” Jim backs up as far as he dares. His bedroom is close. Almost there. 

Duster rushes Jim. He’s fast, all rage and wrestling training. He takes Jim down once, but Jim works himself free. He’s on the ground now, grappling with Duster, ignoring all of the blood getting on his skin and clothes-

_THUMP. THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP._

His downstairs neighbor is raging again, banging the ceiling with his broomstick handle. Jim re-focuses faster than Duster, grabs him and pins him in a sleeper hold. Duster flails weakly.

“What do you want? Who sent you?” Jim barks.

“It’s time to give up,” he chokes out, “on the case.” His wound continues to bleed. “Some people… don’t… want to be found.”

Jim releases his arm a fraction. “Who sent you?” he repeats.

Duster chuckles until his eyes slide out of focus and he falls silent.

“Hey!” Jim slaps him a few times, but he doesn’t flinch. He’s out cold.

Jim lets him go and stands up. His head is complaining at the spot where Duster had clocked him. He goes for the bedroom - best to be ready when Big Guy comes to.

“I like what you’ve done to the place.”

Jim freezes in the doorway. 

Victor’s face is a sliver of moon-yellow streetlight. He’s sitting backwards in Jim’s desk chair: chin tucked over the top of the seatback, thighs threaded through the negative space under the arm rests. It hardly looks comfortable. Behind him, an opened window lets the night in.

“Very, uh, Edgar Allan Poe meets post-apocalyptic department store. Were you looking for this, by the way?” Victor snaps on his lighter and adds a flame to his hand. Candlelight warms the rest of his face into existence.

Jim crosses the room. “I was going for the P226 I keep under my bed.” _And I don’t know why I just told you that._

Victor kicks the swivel chair into motion. The candlelight makes a slow, flickering arc around the room. “Mmm, cedarwood does complement the smell of blood. I didn’t think you’d own a candle.” He kicks again, and again, to speed up.

“Didn’t _know_ I owned a candle.” _Lee liked candles._

Victor is spinning fast now. The candle flame clings desperately to the wick. Jim feels a second headache forming. He stops the chair with his hand and turns it around so that Victor is facing him. 

“Wanna tell me how you knew to show up just now?”

“Not really, no.”

“Get out of my chair.”

Victor doesn’t budge. “I like this chair.”

“Fine,” Jim says with more force than necessary. “Stay in the goddamn chair. But would ya sit in it properly?”

Victor extricates himself from the chair without a single fumble and takes a seat in the normal fashion. 

Jim tries again. “Why are you in my house?”

“I _was_ going to restore your power. But now I’m feeling a little unwelcome.”

“Unwelcome.” Jim plants a hand on either armrest and leans forward, caging Victor in the chair. After a couple of false starts, he decides on: “I’m sorry about earlier today.”

“I know.”

“I got offered a couple of free rooms at Blue Moon. I’m staying tomorrow night. It’ll be nice to get out of this, uh, dark dank cave.”

“Uh huh,” Victor says slowly.

Jim tilts his head to the side. “Means you’re coming with me.”

“Of course. Hotels are dangerous places. After all, seven percent of murders occur in a hotel.”

“Not even remotely true.”

“It’s true when I’m at the hotel.” Victor stands up, forcing Jim to back off. “Thanks for the invite. I’m pretty booked up, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Jim’s skull throbs with a full double headache. Victor snuffs out the flame. Darkness swallows Jim. Victor sets the candle on the desk and turns to leave.

“Wait.” Jim reaches out and grabs what he thinks is Victor’s arm. He’s right, to his relief. “I, uh… I. Don’t…” He lets go of Victor’s arm. “Don’t come with me as my bodyguard. Come as my date.” 

He thanks the darkness for hiding Victor’s reaction. But then, Victor says softly: “Yeah. I got that. I’m going to go take care of those guys. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Jim’s hand is lifted. A kiss falls upon his sore knuckles.

“Wear a suit,” Victor tells him.

His footsteps recede, followed by the sounds of two bodies being dragged out and the door being shut. 

Jim doesn’t move for two minutes. Two minutes and three seconds later, the light comes on in his living room. There’s blood on the carpet and a fist-sized hole in the wall. He won’t be getting his security deposit back, but the bloodied diamond left behind might help.

Only then does Jim remember that he had meant to keep Big Guy for questioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to the 2 of you who have been reading & commenting: you have my sepulchral gratitude & my skeleton army will ride for you in your hour of need.


	6. harvey there yet?

Jim’s wake-up alarm is going off, but it’s a Saturday. He fumbles for the phone and tries to silence it. 

It’s not an alarm. 

_“Good morning, Jim Beam.”_

“Not so loud,” Jim groans.

_“Whoah, someone’s got a case of the jimjams. Hey Jim, are you jammed?”_ Harvey laughs. _“Anyway, I just called to ask you one teensy little question.”_

“Shoot.”

_“Are you out of your fucking mind? You and Victor Zsasz?!”_

Jim’s blood runs colder than Victor Fries. Four damning seconds pass by - he rushes to fill the silence. “Harvey, I-” 

_“You’re working with him, and I, as the brilliant mentor slash comic to your straight man, deserve to know why.”_

Jim’s heartbeat finds a normal rhythm again. “I’m not working with him. It’s just that someone tried to kill me a couple days ago, so I took him on as a bodyguard. A _temporary_ bodyguard.”

 _“Since when is anyone_ not _trying to kill you?”_ Harvey grumbles. _“Look, I hope this goes without saying, but if you have any illusion of ever rejoining the GCPD, you need to nip that shit in the bud. The pale, bald, freaky-deaky bud.”_

Jim grunts noncommittally. _“I know. Thanks for your concern. I’ll be fine.”_ A pause. _“Let’s catch up today. Meet you at Gallagher’s in an hour?”_

_“You sure you can stomach that? Alright. You’re one ballsy motherfucker. Let’s do it.”_

* * *

A shower and a shave and two cigarettes later, Jim Gordon passes for human. Gallagher’s is as empty as he would expect for a Saturday morning. He skips the bar counter and slides into one of the corner booths. His precaution of a rain jacket had done nothing except make him look like a tourist - he shucks the dry garment and balls it up beside him. While he’s waiting for Harvey, he smokes and listens to the conversation of two retirees at the bar counter. 

_“...wait so long to tell me this?’ she says to me. I says to her, ‘Because I knew if I told ya, you’d be mad. But if I didn’t tell ya, you’d be mad. So I figured, mad later’s better than mad now. That’s why.’”_

_“Yeah. Life is full of those kinds of problems. Like when you’re making a PB &J. Do you spread the peanut butter first, and dirty the jelly jar with peanut butter? Or do you spread the jelly first, and dirty the peanut butter jar with jelly? Because I ain’t washing two knives…”_

Harvey walks in with a wisecrack about Jim finally remembering what a razor was. With some cajoling, he gets Jim to join him at the counter. Harvey orders a sazerac. Jim orders a club soda despite Harvey’s strange new obsession with the term “hair of the dog.” His head is still out at sea, and his gut wants nothing to do with the alcohol fumes from Harvey’s drink.

Harvey launches into the story of how he recently tracked down a homicide suspect. Turns out, the guy “fell” on the presumed murder weapon, and Harvey had to wait around while the Gotham General Hospital surgery team removed a kiddie baseball bat from the perp’s colon. Jim can’t top that, but he tells Harvey about the attempt on his life by Mark the front desk guy, and how the hotel owner offered him a free two-night stay.

“Wow. That’s a $516 dollar value. Look at you, Jim, back in the game.”

“What are you saying?” Jim asks, but the answer is written in Harvey’s eyebrow waggle.

“Man, you missed a lot while you were doing hard time. Blue Moon has a certain, uh, _reputation_ , despite being a four star hotel. It’s the kinda place you go to hook up with a stranger, take off your wedding ring, what have you - and no one will ever say anything about it. Not the other guests, and certainly not the employees. Rumor has it, there’s a secret Hungarian sex dungeon in the basement. Which begs the question, what makes a sex dungeon Hungarian, exactly?”

Jim struggles to respond. His jaw has gone slack. He slugs down some club soda, but it does nothing to cool his face.

“Whatsamatter, Jim? Garage door open? Oven on?” Harvey laughs and shakes his head. “Two big hotels in Gotham. Imagine that. People actually want to stay here? Hell, I don’t even want to _live_ here, half the time.”

Jim shrugs a little too hard. “Something about ‘Murder Capital of America’ really excites the tourists, I guess.”

“Actually, we’re number two now. St. Louis stepped up their murder game - made the news while you were in Blackgate. No worries, though, we’ll take back the title.” He cringes. “Don’t tell Barnes I said that. Anyway. How goes the private eye life?”

“It’s… odd. My latest case, there’s something different about it. It feels like my client is trying to sabotage himself.”

“Yeeeah, I don’t get why anyone would do that. Especially with the rates you’re charging. Whew. I’d better get a massage and a happy ending on top of that.”

Jim tests Harvey with a look.

“Oh ho, I know that face. Need the GCPD to do your work for you? Ha. Just kidding. I’ll tell you what I can.”

“Felipe Rosales,” Jim says without ado. “He was a small time gang member until he dropped off the face of the earth some time ago. I suspect he may have gotten a new identity, but I couldn’t find anything in the public record. Know anything about him?”

“Felipe Rosales, huh?” Harvey makes the face one makes when going through a mental cache of thousands of criminal names. “Why does that name sound so familiar?” He mutters the name to himself a few more times before suddenly straightening up and snapping his fingers. “He was Fish Mooney’s. I’m almost certain of it. Too bad she’s, uh, unavailable for comment.”

“Yeah, too bad,” Jim mumbles.

Harvey crosses his arms on the counter. “I know _that_ look, too. You’re going to see Penguin. Don’t deny - I can see the plan forming behind those baby blues.”

Jim offers a sheepish half-smile, half-grimace.

“Ah! I know what this is about.” Harvey leans in with the grin of having scratched an itch. In a hushed voice, he continues, “The hotel guy. Sherman Leonardo? That was Hryniewicki’s case - you remember Hryniewicki from MPU? Case was closed faster than it opened. I do feel bad for the old man - I really do. But everyone knows what happens if you keep a princess locked away in a tower: she’ll run off with the first knight who shows up.”

Jim watches a long pearl of condensation drip down the side of his glass and deepen the moat of water surrounding the drink. Last night, when Jim was drinking alone at home, Shirman called him asking him for an update on the case. Jim snapped at him. Told him that there had been two attempts on his life since he picked up the case and that his rates just went up. What happened after that, he doesn’t remember. 

Harvey looks at Jim probingly. “What I said about Rosales. It’s… it’s not any info that you can’t get after three minutes of harassing people in a back alley. Are you, uh, above that sort of thing now?” 

Jim thinks about about telling him everything. How Victor Zsasz had walked into his life on the kind of legs that fill a man’s head with bad ideas. The worst idea of which was Jim inviting him to the hotel last night only to get stood up. Afterwards, he had gone home and gotten sauced like a teenager whose liver was still holy and full of grace.

Jim answers: “I don’t know what I’m above or beneath anymore. Honest. I’m just trying to keep a low profile.”

“Right.” Harvey hesitates, visibly holding back a remark such as, _We both know you keep your profile no shorter than the Empire State Building. If you are under duress, blink twice so I can find a way to help you._

Jim keeps up the chit-chat for a little longer, but Harvey takes pity on him and sends him home to rest. On the way back, his phone rings.

“Gordon.”

_“Hello Detective Gordon. This is Leonid. I was hoping you could give me the update on progress of case.”_

Jim bristles. “It hasn’t even been twelve hours since you called me.” 

The silence that follows makes Jim check to see if the line is dead. It’s not.

_“Ah-ah, yes, you are right. I did call you last night. I apologize. I was very tired and I took sleeping pill before I called you. I am afraid I don’t remember much of what you said…?”_

Jim sighs away from the receiver. “What I told you was, there have been two separate attempts on my life since I picked up your case. Would you know anything about that?”

Shirman’s reply is measured, devoid of either surprise or concern. _“No. And I would think that, with your history of being a police officer, you could handle these kind of problems.”_

“Like how you handled the fact that Genie fell in love with a woman?”

_“You… you could never understand. You are not a father. My daughter abandoned me!”_

“Abandoned you? You said she was abducted.”

_“Ah, so you’re accusing me of lying to your face!”_

“No. I’m saying that, for some goddamn reason, you don’t want this case to be solved. But it’s not too late. Just tell me what-”

Shirman hangs up on him.


	7. pretty white jaws

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let us softly pretend that pengs has his iceberg lounge already (I Fucked Up)

Penguin’s lounge doesn’t open for another ten minutes, but the door is unlocked. Jim lets himself in. An iron-red sunset made beautiful by smog bleeds through the floor-length windows and stains the blue-lit ceiling. It’s silent save for the _snick_ of a match strike.

Victor is sitting on a bar stool with his boots propped up on the counter. The stool is tilted back so that he’s balanced on two of its four legs. A wisp of smoke rises from the small pile of burnt matches before him. There’s a lit match between his fingertips and a golden glow reflected in his eyes.

Without looking up from the flame, he says, “So that was you pacing around outside.”

“I’m here to see Penguin.”

Victor ponders his request as the fire licks away at the match’s life. When the flame threatens to consume his skin, he turns a black stare upon Jim and extinguishes the match on his tongue. “Okay,” he says agreeably. He drops the dead match onto the pile.

Jim waits. Victor strikes a new match and admires the burn. 

Jim tries again. “Are you going to take me to him?” 

“I’m not his secretary, so….”- he blinks -“no.” He kills the match - this time with a shake of his hand - and adds it to the pile.

Jim approaches the bar counter and considers kicking out the stool. As if sensing this, Victor tosses the half-empty matchbook onto the counter and straightens the stool and himself. “Have a seat,” he tells Jim and nods his head in the direction of the seating area.

Jim glances between Victor and the sofa. “I’m good here.”

Victor’s eyes go wide. “Jim, I swear-” he warns. “Have. A. Seat.” He gestures at the sofa with a throwing-knife motion.

Jim’s legs take him to the long, curved sofa against the wall, and he perches himself on the very edge and end of it. Victor sits down right beside and against him. Their knees are touching. Jim shifts away by one inch. Victor shifts in to make up for it. He smells like match smoke. Jim has a sudden and strange expectation of cake. 

“Are we”- Victor gestures between the two of them -“alright?”

“Copacetic.”

Victor purses his lips. “You’re mad at me.”

Jim says nothing.

“When you asked me to meet you the hotel. I didn’t forget to go. I chose not to.”

Jim looks at him sidelong. “Fine.” 

“I decided not to show up,” he continues, “Because I knew that if I did… we were gonna fuck.”

“What,” Jim manages to say. His stomach is in a hot pan, flipping once, twice. 

“I mean... shouldn’t you get to know me first?” His voice dips low. “I don’t want the kids at school to think we’re”- he mouths the next word - _“fast.”_

There’s a hand burning up his knee. It’s Victor’s. Jim reaches out and seizes his wrist but doesn’t pry it off. He doesn’t know what to do with it. 

“You want me,” Victor says gravely. His eyes are two black holes from which no light can escape. 

Jim swallows dry. He lets go of Victor’s wrist. “Yes.” 

An alien force pushes Jim toward Victor. He leans in, about to take Victor by the jaw, but Victor pulls away. His fingertips crawl up Jim’s thigh, leaving hot little stitches over the inseam. 

The room is loud with rain. Jim’s not sure when that started. He’s only aware of body and blood and heat.

Victor tilts his head to the side. He’s breathing for the both of them. “Pink is a good color on you, Jim.” 

Jim makes a small noise through his teeth. He’s straining against his trouser pocket. Victor’s grin forms the curve of a scythe blade, wicked and gleaming. He takes a hold of Jim. Palms him through the fabric. Gives him a few slow, teasing strokes.

Jim pants out, “Oh, God.” 

“Victor,” he corrects him. His thumb is rubbing circles over the damp spot forming against the fabric.

“Victor,” Jim echoes mindlessly.

Victor slides back in the seat, making room so that he can lean over. He buries his nose into Jim’s groin and inhales deeply. Runs a playful nuzzle up and down the length. His fingers find Jim’s zipper - he pulls it down-

“Victor!” yells a raspy voice from above, followed by a metallic clanging noise.

Victor’s pleased hum vibrates Jim’s skin. Still mouthing against him, he works the button and hook of Jim’s fly open.

“Victor,” Jim hisses. His hand settles on the back of Victor’s head. “Someone’s coming.”

“Mmm, already?” His hand thrusts into Jim’s trousers - Jim groans into his fist.

More thumps from above in succession. Someone’s lurching down the spiral staircase.

“ _Victor._ Fuck-” Jim bucks him off. His heart is drumming in time with the rain against the window. He scrambles to make himself decent.

Victor uprights himself. His black eyes eat Jim up. His lips find the shell of Jim’s ear. “Do us both a favor,” he murmurs. “Go home, pull one off, clear your head. _Then_ call me if you still want to meet up.” 

He gives Jim’s earlobe a parting nip, then shoves off the couch and slips out the door.

A little bird bursts around the corner beak first.

“Victor!” Oswald shouts again. He pauses, nostrils flared, and mutters, “Why does it smell like someone’s birthday?”

His green mancala-bead eyes land upon Jim. Flaring up, he speed-limps over to the red-faced, cross-legged detective. “Jim Gordon. I assume you are in _desperate_ need of intel, given that’s the _only_ reason you ever visit me.”

“Yes,” comes his guttural reply. 

Oswald smiles. “Very well. I will be in the private room over there.” He points across the lounge. “Please join me at your _earliest convenience.”_

He drags himself away. After a long minute, Jim drags himself over, too, and shuts the door behind him. The softly lit room has more lounge chairs and a large table with a hookah setup. Above them hangs an ice-blue crystal chandelier.

“I’m looking for a guy named Felipe Rosales. I believe you know him.”

Oswald frowns. Not for the effort of recalling information. Rather, he’s simultaneously fishing in the pool of Jim’s mind and calculating the worth of his catch.

“I knew him briefly, yes. Rosales was Fish Mooney’s match boy for a hot minute.”

“Match boy?”

“He used to roll her cigarettes and light them on demand. Among other, shall we say, _less savory_ tasks. I only met him once, but I’d say he was odd kid. And I do mean _kid_ \- he hardly looked old enough to legally buy the tobacco he rolled, ironically enough.” He starts a lurching pace in a circle around Jim. “He always talked big about getting into the business of museum curation. Kid was too much of a romantic for his own good. It was no surprise that he didn’t last long.”

“He’s dead? Are you sure?”

“Oh yes. One day - a dark and stormy night, as it were - he goes and asks Fish to be released from his duties. Quite a brazen move. Everyone knows, you either die working for Fish, or you die branded as a traitor - with some notable exceptions.” He flashes a smug smile. “Rumor has it that Psychic of the Three Claw Crew was trying to recruit him. You know of whom I speak?”

The name floats to him from a police lineup of days past. A mobster who was born with two digits and one thumb on his left hand. “Aaron Kageyama.”

“The very same. Rest in pieces,” Oswald sniffs. “Anyway. Rosales put in his request on that fateful night. Fish shot him, of course. That was the last time anyone ever saw that ill-fated gang dropout. Given that this is Gotham… I suppose there’s a chance he is still alive, or undead, but even I wouldn’t bet money on it - and I’ve got enough funds to run for mayor if I wanted to.”

“Good luck with that.”

Oswald circles back around to face Jim. “Your turn turn to talk. _Why_ have you been running around town with my best hitman?”

“I took him on as a bodyguard. Just for a couple of days.”

Oswald forces a short laugh. “Jim Gordon. You are many things. A hypocrite. A white knight-”

“That’s enough.”

“-But, above all, you are a bad _liar!”_ \- he pushes out the last word with diaphragmatic force. “Since when have you ever wanted, or needed, a bodyguard?” He doesn’t let Jim answer. “And. Well. Did you even bother to consider the likeliest outcomes of your latest _alliance_? Do you even know anything about him at all? I mean, it’s only a matter of time before he turns on me. And I _pay_ him! If I were you, I’d start looking for some leverage.” He resumes pacing around Jim. “I suppose, at the end of the day, you can’t blame him for any misguided choices, given his _family history.”_

“Family history?”

Oswald sighs through his nose. “It is a tale in equal parts tragic and disturbing. His biological mother died when he was a baby. His adoptive parents didn’t know what to do with him. He was a strange child who liked to hurt people - you know, behavior that does _not_ inspire parental love. Well. His father tried to love him - oh yes, tried with all of his heart! His mother, however… she gave up on him. Abandoned him like a cat on a street corner. And so, he ended up running away from home at a tender young age.” He shakes his head. “A man can live - thrive, even - without the love of his father. But to be rejected by one’s own mother, well… it’s simply unfathomable! A mother’s love is _vital.”_

“I get it. He kills people. Last time I checked, so do both of us.”

Oswald rounds his seaglass eyes at him. “I must say, I was wrong about you. I was convinced you were _fundamentally incapable_ of cognitive consonance. However, there’s more for you to swallow. For us, killing is merely a means to an end - no pun intended. When we soil our hands with blood, we hurry to wash them clean. Not Victor Zsasz. He savors it, the sign of death. Carves it into his skin as a permanent memento.” He searches Jim’s face. “Or have you not seen it, yet?”

Jim unclenches his jaw but says nothing.

“I see you are bristling at being lumped in with the likes of me. Well, I’m afraid that’s a personal problem. Best to resolve your underlying issues before they get you behind bars again.”

“Why do you care what happens to me?”

“We _are_ friends, are we not? Friends look out for each other. A give-and-take partnership. Regardless if the give-and-take is a bit more… take than give.” He looks meaningfully at Jim. 

Jim ignores his jab. “Two nights ago, a couple of goons broke into my house and attacked me. Funny thing is, they weren’t armed. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” 

Oswald’s eyes harden into green pebbles. “You do have a lot of enemies, but I’m not one of them currently.”

“Right,” Jim bites out. “Thanks for your time.”


	8. F.T.P.

Jim digs himself deep into Bruce Wayne’s investigation of Indian Hill, but not so deep that he doesn’t have time to quietly poke around the business of Victor’s past. Shirman hasn’t bothered Jim since their argument on the phone. Jim has half a mind to run out his time on the case and let Genie fly the lamp.

Two days go by before Jim calls Victor. 

On that soupy evening, the roar of a motorcycle engine interrupts Jim while he’s tying a tie. He parts the window curtains and catches a black Kawasaki Ninja pulling through fog.

Jim opens the window to yell down, “Hell, no.”

Victor’s reply comes muffled by his motorcycle helmet: “I know, the roads are slippery. But it’s cool. I ride in the rain all the time.”

“I’m _not_ getting on that thing.”

“You’re making a scene.” Victor tips his helmet visor open. _“Jim,”_ he warns.

Jim shuts the window, slings an angry Windsor knot into his tie, chucks on his suit jacket, and heads down. Pushing through the front doors of the building, Jim finds Victor leant against his bike, one black boot crossed over the other, squinting at Jim through rain. He’s wearing a short silver chain necklace over a high-collared, complicated black thing that at once makes Jim feel both underdressed and overdressed. 

“Good boy.” Victor takes off his rain-beaded helmet and puts it on Jim’s head. “There. Now no one has to know it’s you riding bitch.” 

After drying off the seat with one swipe of his gloved hand, he swings back onto the bike. Jim climbs on and places one hand on Victor’s waist in a political meet-and-greet sort of way. Victor grabs both of Jim’s hands, pulls him forward so that he’s no longer leaning the balance off, and re-positions both of his hands firmly at his waist. 

“Try and hold on, huh, Jamie? Don’t want to lose you.” 

Victor starts the engine and kicks off.

* * *

The two bullet holes in the wall of Blue Moon’s lobby have been patched up and painted over. Past the lobby is a bar and a sprawling lounge in shades of white and orange. Both areas have decent crowds. A musician performs in the lounge, singing and playing “Hotel California” on a candy red piano.

The receptionist seems to have been expecting Jim and Victor’s arrival. She checks them both into the same penthouse suite without asking. 

Jim pockets the room key. “What do you want to do first?”

“Secret sex dungeon,” Victor answers without hesitation. “Let’s go find it.”

A round of applause from the lounge - the musician’s just finished her song.

Jim shakes his head. “We’re not doing that.”

“Observatory?”

* * *

They ride a wood-paneled elevator up to the highest floor choice, 26. This floor boasts a formal restaurant, a taqueria, and another bar. A flight of stairs with wrought iron railings gets them to the 27th and uppermost floor.

The stairs end at a doorway manned by a security guard; behind him, an ineffective but handsome velvet rope barrier. Inscribed above the door arch is the title “PLANETARIUM.” The guard nods at them and permits them to enter. 

The planetarium, spanning the entire right rotunda of the building, is laid out like a clock face. Hour markings in Roman numeral form are engraved along the wall, with “XII” positioned above the entrance. Every hour has its own softly illuminated art exhibit upon or against the wall - except for three o’clock and nine o’clock which are glass doors. Marble floor tiles form an elaborate compass-like design centered in the room. 

In the middle of the compass stands a couple, a man and a woman. They’re drunk and high and agog at the domed ceiling art: a neoclassical mural of zodiac figures swimming through the night sky.

A sign on the wall encourages visitors to “browse clockwise.” Jim and Victor wander to the one o’clock exhibit. It’s a crystal cube filled with black glitter that, if viewed from the front, depicts a three-dimensional Gotham skyline as seen from the observatory. 

They are studying the four o’clock exhibit when the lights dim to near-darkness. 

A velvety, oak-aged voice booms from hidden speakers, _“Welcome to the Blue Moon Planetarium. We are delighted you are joining us on a journey through the stars. Flight time is fifteen minutes and zero seconds.”_

The domed ceiling blacks out and ambient music begins to play. Stoned lady gasps in delight. Stoned gentleman murmurs a complaint of nausea.

The next fifteen minutes is an immersive, educational film played on the ceiling and narrated by the toasty-voiced narrator.

At the end of the film, the narrator announces, _“We hope you enjoyed your cosmic adventure. Access to the observatory is through the three o’clock door. Otherwise, please exit through the gift shop located past the nine o’clock door. Thank you and enjoy your stay at Blue Moon Hotel & Observatory.”_

The mural reappears and the lights come back on. The spaced-out couple is gone.

“Interesting tech,” Victor says to Jim. “Makes you wonder why we still use typewriters.”

The gift shop turns out to be closed. At Jim’s prompt, they proceed through the three o’clock double glass doors. This takes them out to a balcony arcing along the rear face of the rotunda. They’re alone. It’s still raining. 

The observatory has two simple telescopes and one larger, complex telescope. Victor jumps for the main telescope and spends enough time scoping around that Jim asks, “What do you see?”

“A whole lotta light pollution. Here, you try.”

Jim fiddles with the telescope settings but only succeeds in throwing them off. “Raindrops. Large. Very blurry,” he concludes.

“Great observatory,” says Victor with an ambiguous level of sarcasm.

They share two quiet cigarettes. Black rain clouds drift aside to reveal the moon: large and sleepy and white-gold, with a diffuse halo of prismatic colors.

“Moon’s nice,” Jim says lamely, but he’s redeemed by but Victor’s quirked smile of agreement. 

“That’s how it looked at the beginning of the month,” he recalls. “You hungry?” 

* * *

After a meal of unexpectedly good tacos from the taqueria, they end up at the bar. “September” by Earth Wind & Fire is playing over the speakers. A curly-haired, eyelinered bartender greets them boredly and slaps down two circular coasters printed with a topographically accurate image of the moon. Sliding in after is a cocktail menu featuring a descriptionless list of Kurt Vonnegut novel titles. 

Jim eschews the menu and orders a whiskey. Victor orders the _Slaughterhouse-Five_ , a drink described by the bartender as “offensive in every way.” He receives a layered concoction of kirsch and Jägermeister alongside a bomb shot of gin and a bomb shot of bourbon.

Several drinks later, the bar seems a little more genuine and its nonstop 70’s music playlist becomes tolerable - for Jim. Victor had been enjoying the disco hits the whole time. The bar crowd has thinned out some and the bartender is picking off her chipped black nail polish. Jim caves in and orders a _Breakfast of Champions_ , which turns out to be a blood orange-y version of a Bloody Mary.

“Palatable,” Victor says of the drink.

Jim agrees. Victor is still wearing every layer he arrived in, but Jim has loosened his collar and tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Since the barstools are backless, he’s laid his suit jacket across his lap. Victor places a cool touch upon Jim’s wrist. Jim watches from the corner of his eye as Victor turns Jim’s forearm over to expose the pale, blue-veined skin of his inner wrist. 

Holding up his own green-veined wrist, Victor says, “See, everyone calls me pale, but I’m tanner than you.” He pats Jim’s wrist and turns it back over. “You are _very_ white.”

Jim scoffs into his Vonnegut.

“Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears comes on, breaking the chain of all 70’s music. At the same time, Victor’s _The Siren of Titans_ arrives: amber-colored and carbonated, swirled with edible gold flakes and served with a metal straw.

“Oh man. This is actually really fucking good.” He slides the drink over to Jim. “Taste mine.”

Jim reaches not for the glass but for the side of Victor’s neck, just below his ear. Victor’s eyes go matte.

A beat passes. 

Jim leans in. 

Rustle of leather - Victor’s shoulders have tensed up. Jim stops just shy of Victor’s mouth. Eyelashes ticking up and down over flame-blue eyes. A tiny thread of space hangs between their lips. 

Victor says quietly into the space, “Someone will see.”

Jim rubs the pad of his thumb against Victor’s jawbone. His voice is the scrape of tires against low beam-lit gravel: “Let them.”

Victor’s neck flushes with goosebumps. He kills the space - Jim inhales softly through his nose in surprise. Victor’s lips are cold from the drink. His hand settles upon the back of Jim’s neck, fingers interesting themselves in the prickly texture of the close-shaven hairs. 

Jim tilts his head and presses past Victor’s lips. _The Siren of Titans_ sweeps over his tongue - cream soda bittered by amaro and sharpened by tart apple cinnamon. After a moment, Victor pulls away and turns his head to the side. 

“Scratchy.” Victor rubs his cheek pointedly against the grain of Jim’s late-hour stubble. 

“Sorry,” says Jim, a rare smile playing on his lips.

Victor buries the apology, kissing him cold and deep and open. A waiter comes by with a complimentary offering of Montecristo cigars, but Jim waves him away without breaking the kiss. He lets his hand fall from Victor’s neck to trail down his spine, growing wolfish when Victor arches his back in response.

Victor leans back and slides off the barstool in one fluid motion. Jim looks at him dazed. Victor picks up the end of Jim’s tie and fixes him with a hot black stare.

“Room,” he says simply, and leads Jim there by his tie.


	9. omertà

It is the absence of apartment noise that rouses Jim before five in the morning. His eyelids snap open like shutters, and he finds his body sitting bolt upright upon the bed as if possessed by a demon. He is unclothed and alone. The sliding glass door to the balcony is cracked ajar, letting in a damp, whistling breeze that claws at the thrown-wide curtains. 

A glimmer of something shiny but not new catches his eye: Victor’s lighter, placed neatly on the center of the nightstand like a calling card. In a rustle of blankets, Jim rises from bed and picks up the lighter. Two pens roll off the nightstand, which he ignores. The lighter's brushed nickel surface is cold and smooth and free of any engravings. While snapping the flame on and off, he tries to decide if he is allowed to be disappointed that Victor is gone. 

The lighter gets tossed aside on the sheets. He lurches off to the bathroom to relieve himself and wash up. He returns to the bedroom mummified in a plush, hotel-issued white robe. After another wretched stare at the lighter, he retrieves his suit jacket from where it had been discarded upon the floor. From its pocket he exhumes his own lighter and a half-empty pack of half-crushed cigarettes.

He meets the wind halfway, at the door where it throws itself against glass, salt-soaked and shrieking like a banshee. Silence falls when he slides the door open and walks out onto cold concrete. The sky is a dark violet bruise. A thick white fog erases most of the horizon from view, giving an illusion of cleanliness to the city. 

He frees the least crooked cigarette from the pack and lights it. The glow of its ember is the only speck of color in sight. 

Jim has touched the Pacific Ocean once in his life. The cool coastal winds blowing inland freshened up the air and got people chasing pipe dreams. It was never like that here, not with the Atlantic swamp around Gotham City.

Several drags later, he feels no better than before. His head is still heavy upon his neck, unbalanced with a strange weight. The weight of a forgotten memory, itchy and furry and crying for attention from its corner. A long tail of ash accumulates on his cigarette.

And then. It returns. A memory of a dream, or a dream of a memory. Victor rose from bed and kissed Jim on the forehead, left eye, right eye, lips. He whispered to Jim that he was being collected, and rightfully so. That Jim should not interfere, out of respect for the code. In his leaden sleep, Jim murmured for Victor to have a nice day at work.

He stubs out the cigarette upon the balcony railing and hurries back inside. Victor’s lighter is waiting for him on the bed. He carries it to the nightstand and tries to recreate its placement from earlier. It was upright upon its long edge. That was curious, in hindsight. The nightstand also had two hotel-branded pens which had fallen off when he grabbed the lighter. He returns the pens to their earlier positions. Lighter on the left, touching the corner of the first pen. Both pens touching corners with one another. An arc of approximately 80 degrees between the lighter and the second pen.

Frowning at the three-pronged arrangement, he wills himself to hallucinate a meaning. 

_A claw._

* * *

Two minutes of harassing people in a back alley gets Jim the name of Three Claw Crew’s new leader: Alex Kageyama, alias Thrasher. Psychic’s younger brother.

Another three minutes in a different alley gives Jim the direction the crew was headed: downtown, via Gothard Street.

“Please, brother. Shaking me won’t jog my memory, alright? I don’t know where they were going, honest. But, uh, I heard... I heard, the other day, that the Crew is trying to make a turf claim before some hippie upscale brewery gets to it first.”

Jim releases the veteran and thanks him for his service.

* * *

If a bunch of brick walls and steel pipes fell from the sky and stayed where they landed, you’d get something like Nolan’s Brewery. Since the sprawling brewery complex closed down twenty years ago, some of its buildings have been demolished, while the rest has been left to rot. Its pockmarked, salt-washed exterior walls are layered with twenty years’ worth of graffiti. Most of the property has been sealed off and sealed off again to keep up with the squatters and urban explorers of Gotham who fear neither prison nor tetanus. 

Jim’s flashlight beam bounces off a reflective “KEEP OUT” sign. It’s one of many signs dotting the long stretch of chain-link fence that separates him from the rear side of the complex. Unlike the other fences topped with razor wire, the fence here is bald. Jim tucks his flashlight between his teeth and scales the fence - not as easily as he used to, but easily enough. By the time he’s landed on the other side, his palms are smarting with chain impressions.

He crosses the ground in quick strides, flashlight beam sweeping over weed-sprouted cracks in the asphalt. The west facade of the building, a giant red brick made of smaller red bricks, swallows him in its shadow. He climbs a corroded metal stoop to reach a once-white door that has since greened and browned. The door is ajar, and its glass panels are missing. He lets himself in and finds himself in a dark, debris-lined corridor. Asbestos pipes run along the length of the walls. A caustic liquid drips from the ceiling and forms caustic puddles of mud. 

Jim draws a breath of musty air and ventures down the corridor. It’s silent, save for the wind rushing through the glassless door behind him. As he gets deeper, the odor of rusted metal and moist wood intensifies, clinging film-like to his nostrils. Near the end of the hallway he finds a metal door that has been forced open just wide enough for one person.

Squeezing through the door takes him into an expansive room that’s mostly bare save for some machinery and a large industrial drum. Steel pipes and thick structural columns run parallel to the flaking walls. Visible from here is the second level, cordoned off by a railing. He takes the stairs to that level, which is another expansive, almost identical room. From here, the staircase continues uninterrupted through several more levels. The climb has him in a sweat despite the chill in the air: about half of the steps have fallen away, forcing him to edge along the metal scaffolding.

The third floor is awash in a purplish, pre-dawn light. A much-needed fresh breeze streams in through cracked and shattered windows. He turns off his flashlight and lets his eyes adjust to the dim surroundings. There are massive circular cut-outs in the floor and ceiling where beer vats used to be, allowing him a view of both the upper and lower floors. The peeling walls on this level bear the most numerous and artistic graffiti thus far, some of which Jim could _almost_ consider to be murals. 

A hunch takes him toward a closed door at the periphery of the level. He draws his SIG Sauer P226 and disables the safety. He creeps closer, approaching at an angle such that he’d be behind the door if it opened. A sudden _clink_ startles him - he flattens himself against the wall, heart pounding. The threat: a bottle cap he had nudged with the toe of his shoe. Relief never arrives - there are voices coming from behind the door. He holds his breath to listen.

 _“...So, do we have a deal?”_ A taunt carried in that throaty, strangely soothing voice.

 _Victor,_ Jim realizes. His palm starts to sweat around the grip.

 _“I don’t make deals with pigfuckers,”_ spits a nasal-voiced thug.

A fist strikes skin. 

A small, unperturbed sniff.

_“Retired.”_

_“Who’s retired? You or the pig?”_ Nasal Voice chortles at his own joke, cuing several other, scattered laughs.

Jim’s jaw clenches. Judging by the laughs, there are at least eight other men in the room, and one of them is right by the door. 

_“Regardless. You should consider what I said.”_

_“Shut up, would ya?”_ Another fist strike. _“Thought you were supposed to be the silent type.”_

A new voice chimes in: _“So how much longer are we be gonna waiting for Thrasher? I'm fucking starving.”_

Jim’s stomach does a front flip and doesn’t stick the landing. He whips around to take aim at the armed and mulleted man silently cresting the flight of stairs.

Thrasher freezes near the top of the staircase. He stares up the barrel of his pistol at Jim. “Jim Gordon. I’m in luck.” 

_“I think someone’s out there,”_ calls an anonymous thug. _“You want I should check it out?”_

The door flies open. 

Footfalls of men running out the doorway. Thrasher fires at Jim. Jim dodges the shots and takes cover behind a jutting concrete wall. Thrasher does the same, albeit behind a structural column. As they exchange shots from behind their barriers, a mix of shouts and machine gun fire erupts from within the room. At least two other people are shooting at Jim from just outside the room. 

Nasal Voice staggers out of the room. “Fuck, I’m shot.”

The distraction catches Thrasher unawares as he peeks out to fire at Jim. Jim gets him first with two shots, one to each shoulder. Thrasher collapses.

More noises from the room.

Jim pauses to reload. A bullet whizzing by his cover wall grazes his temple and the helix of his ear. He barely registers the hot metal sting. The man who shot at him is standing near one of the large circular cutouts in the floor. Jim uses the first round in his new cartridge to drop him right through the hole. 

A new player emerges from the room: Victor Zsasz, cuddling an M60. “Look what I found.” He cracks his neck to the left, to the right. Then opens fire. 

Bodies drop in the pattern of popcorn kernels popping. One lone thump, several quick thumps in succession, and a final, isolated thump.

Jim steps out from behind the wall. His ears are ringing with gunshot noises. After putting the machine gun down for a nap, Victor approaches him. Jim studies the fresh bruises on Victor’s face. Victor studies the graze wounds along Jim's temple and ear.

“You okay?” Jim asks. 

Victor lunges forward and shoves Jim aside. Jim catches himself before he falls.

Thrasher is sitting up.

He takes aim at Victor.

 _Click._

A dry fire. Horror overtakes Thrasher’s face upon realizing that his chamber is empty. Satisfaction overtakes Victor’s. He saunters over to Thrasher and drops to a kneeling position. 

“Guns," Victor says sympathetically. “They’re so unreliable. I get it, though. Everyone else has guns, so…” He shrugs. “I really have no choice but to use them, too.” 

He seizes the man’s hand, gun and all, and brains him with his own pistol grip - the crack of metal against bone rings through the room. Perking up, Victor excuses himself to the other room and returns with a bloodied switchblade. If Thrasher wasn’t already dead, he’s definitely dead after Victor opens his carotid artery so cleanly that there’s minimal spray. Jim and Victor stand side by side and watch the bright red pool spread underneath his body. After a long minute, Victor tosses the blade aside.

“Morning,” he tells Jim, startling him to the grayish, wet dawn.

Jim sweeps his gaze across the bodies littering the floor. Victor does the same, but his lips are mouthing some numbers.

“So… what does this mean?” Jim says.

“It means,” Victor thinks aloud, “that I may have moved up a few slots on their shitlist, depending on the whims of the new _new_ leader.” He turns his head to the side and spits pink, then uses the back of his hand to wipe his chin free of blood and saliva.

Jim boils over. He hooks Victor by the hips and pulls him in flush. A fine mist of blood graces the hitman’s neck and the lower half of his face. What was on his chin has been smeared off. This cues Jim to the sticky, drying sensation he’s been ignoring on his own face and neck. He probes at his bullet graze wounds. His hand comes away slick with a mixture of fresh and coagulated blood.

Victor sighs contentedly. “You look so good like that.”

Jim kisses him, tasting copper. Victor savors the audible scrape of his finger pads down Jim’s nape. He proceeds to dig a further mess into Jim’s dark golden hair. Jim kneads a bloodied palm against Victor’s ass. He’s already scouted out the nearest wall against which to pin him and-

Something warm is seeping into Jim’s shirt.

He pulls back and presses a hand against Victor’s abdomen. “You’re bleeding.” 

Victor gives him a funny look. “So are you, but consider how I didn't call you out like that."

_Regardless. You should consider what I said,_ Jim recalls. _Do I want to know...?_

"The deal," Jim finds himself saying. "What did you offer, back in there?"

"Ah, so you heard me." Victor stifles a yawn. “What happened was, they tied me to a chair and were content to just brass knuckle me a little. No big deal - even I was bored waiting for Thrasher to show up. Then, one of the goons found a pretty little shard of glass. So they thought of a game, one where they took turns sticking me with the glass shard to see who could get a reaction out of me. I didn’t like that game too much. I told them the deal. Either I die before Thrasher can get his vengeance on me… meaning they’ll all die slow by his hand. Or... they set me free and I kill them quick and clean. I guess… we reached... a nice compromise… in the end.” A grimace twists his mouth. He's looking paler than usual.

“Victor, you need medical attention."

“No,” he says firmly. “I would never die… in _Gotham._ I just need… to sit… down...” 

His eyelids flutter. He moves to sit down but falls over instead. Jim catches him through a swirl of airborne dust particles and sets him gently upon the ground. He fishes his phone out of his pocket, but Victor’s hand shoots out and clamps down over his fingers and the phone.

“No ambulance,” Victor grits out. “Hate hospitals. They always find me, always… want something...” A shadow falls over his face. “You try and I’ll snap the phone in half.”

“Okay. No ambulance,” Jim lies. He places his other hand over Victor’s and challenges it with a squeeze. 

Victor pretends not to notice that Jim is slowly prying his fingers off, one by one. “Do you…” he begins. His voice is a quiet, halting rasp, drawing Jim close. “...Do you own, or have access to, any technical gear?”

“Pardon?” Jim has freed both his hand and phone from Victor’s crushing grip. His deadened fingers tingle with newly restored circulation.

Victor traces his bottom lip with his tongue. He arches up slightly and says, “I prefer SWAT gear, but I’ll settle for military.”

A blush creeps over Jim's neck, although it's hidden by a good coat of blood. His small sigh sends dust motes dancing. “We can talk about this some other time, when you’re not about to die in an abandoned brewery.”

Victor nods, lips curling into a crooked, sleepy smile. His eyes slide out of focus. 

Jim makes the phone call.

* * *

An ambulance screams its way to the street outside the parking lot. Jim is waiting there, having fireman-carried the unconscious assassin out of the building. Victor Zsasz’s body was as dense as a singularity, and Jim’s knees won’t be forgiving him anytime soon. 

Two paramedics hop out of the ambulance: a tall, ginger-haired young man, and the driver, sturdy and sporting a dark beard and ponytail. They assess Victor, have a brief chat with Jim, and then load Victor onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. Jim thanks them and steps back.

“Uh-uh. You too, fuzz.” Ponytail snaps his fingers at Jim. “You’re coming with us.”

Jim hesitates. “As a ride-along.” He looks to the redhead for confirmation which he doesn’t receive.

“What, like he’s your bambino or somethin’?” Ponytail laughs, jabbing a thumb in Victor’s direction. “No. As a patient for Gotham General. 'Cause you look like Carrie at the prom.”

“I’m fine,” Jim insists. 

“You don’t want to walk yourself into the ambulance, that’s alright. I got drugs. I’ll knock you out and drag you in there myself.” 

It’s an empty threat, but Jim climbs aboard the back of the vehicle - and hides the ensuing wave of dizziness when Ponytail claps him on the shoulder.

“Atta boy. I’d hate to see another tough guy die of blood loss out here.”

Jim takes a seat on the bench facing Victor. The whole ride, he doesn’t take his eyes off him. Just in case his attention is the only thing powering the rise and fall of Victor’s chest.


	10. see the light

It’s a rough day for Gotham, judging by the packed state of the emergency room. If any of the other patients glance at Jim, it’s to size him up, as if to say: _I’m clearly closer to death than you are, so I’d better be seen first._ Jim is assessed by a triage nurse named Carol who mentally retired ten years ago and would look spiffy behind a government desk somewhere.

And then he waits.

Once Jim is finally seen, he gets stitched up in all of three minutes and is discharged without conviction. He heads straight to the surgical department. None of the hospital employees stop to question him as he makes his way from room to room. The smell of disinfectant is stronger in this ward, and it fills Jim with desperation to shower the dried blood and brewery grime off his body. 

He finds him in the room next to the stairwell at the end of the hallway. Victor is in a sedated sleep, looking unusually small in a too-large hospital gown, his skin grayish against the worn white fibers of the hospital sheets. A CRT television set mounted at the ceiling plays a vacuous morning talk show at a low volume. The other, unoccupied bed in the room is a rumpled mess of sheets and personal belongings, as if the patient has just been raptured.

Jim picks up a chair from alongside the wall and gently sets it down by the right side of Victor’s bed. The motion of sitting down makes his knees complain. He’s suddenly very, very tired, his accumulated sleep debt having caught up to him at once. Victor’s left arm lays exposed over the tucked-in blanket. Tally marks old and new shine under the fluorescent overhead lighting.

Jim’s hand makes contact with Victor’s skin. Fingers tracing over scar tissue in a soothing ritual. With sleepy eyes he notices a dried-up alcohol pad that was left behind near Victor’s shoulder. He reaches over to remove it. 

A hand shoots up and seizes Jim’s with that crocodile jaw-like strength. Victor’s eyelids open a fraction, exposing only the whites of his eyes. Jim stumbles over an apology.

Victor’s crescent-moon eye whites rove around. He murmurs to Jim - or someone - in a quiet tritone: “Look what they did. Look! You see? They sewed me back together wrong. They profaned my counts. Crossed where they should not. Erased where they should not. Oh, the skin, it burns! You’ll avenge me, won’t you?” A pause. “Thank you! Oh thank you, I knew you would understand. Yes, after what that anesthesiologist did to you...” He trails off into silence.

Victor’s grip has slowly loosened during his speech. Jim manages to extricate his hand. His heart is racing. The air is _touching_ his neck. He jumps to his feet - no one was behind him. He starts toward the door, ready to slip out of the room, when the shifted weight of his trouser pocket reminds him. Victor’s lighter. The memento had grown familiar like a guest over tea. He sets it on the nightstand. 

_“Hi!”_ blares a too-loud commercial from the TV, startling Jim. An attractive woman walks across the screen. Blue dress, sharp heels, and a white smile to match her white lab coat. _“I’m Dr. Pamela Mulholland, or, as my patients call me, Dr. Pam!”_

Jim searches the room for the remote, to no avail. The commercial has him on edge. He’s tempted to simply smash in the television screen.

 _”I’m the ONLY FEMALE plastic surgeon in Gotham City who is BOARD CERTIFIED.”_ She holds out her hand, and the words ONLY, FEMALE, and BOARD CERTIFIED appear. _“Here at Mulholland Plastic Surgery Clinic, we use cutting-edge technology to produce beautiful, professional results.”_ A photo of the clinic slides in behind her.

In a gruff, Jim stalks over to the television set. He reaches for the buttons below the screen. 

Dr. Pam’s last words before Jim shuts her off: _“Visit our convenient Marina location and learn how we can help you become your authentic self!”_

The black screen reflects Jim. Jim reflects back at the screen.

He paces to the bed. Victor is at ease, asleep. Jim leans over and kisses him on the forehead, chin, left eye, right eye.

“I’m sorry to leave you, but I have to go close a case,” Jim tells him, hushed. “I hope… I hope when I get back, you’ll still be here. Not in the hospital - I meant…” Jim cuts himself off with a smile and a shake of his head. 

He lingers by the door for a moment in case Victor wakes up, but the man doesn’t stir.

* * *

In Jim’s brief absence from home, black mold has started to bloom through his bedroom wallpaper. He takes a hot but short shower and dresses himself in a button-down shirt, casual blazer and chinos. Shirman’s evidence pile is spread out where Jim left it on the desk. Jim sifts through the pile until he finds the document. What he took to be the last letter is actually the second to last letter - he’s sure of it. The final, undated letter reads:

_Genie,_

_I haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything alright with you and your father? I think I’m about to do something crazy tonight. By the time you read this… well, I’m sure you’ll have heard how it went down._

_Felipe_

The rest of the page is filled with drawings: one large, detailed pencil sketch of Buddha, surrounded by simpler doodles of elephants, palm trees, and ocean waves.


	11. mind games with family

Gate B41 at JFK is packed with travelers waiting for their China Airlines flight. Jim gets a few annoyed looks as he weaves his way around people and their travel bags. The search for Genie is off to an unsuccessful start, but he consoles himself with the fact that boarding doesn’t start for about half an hour. He moves on to canvassing the nearest cluster of shops and restaurants. A bar has him checking out the patrons.

Two women are seated at the end of the counter, each with a glass of white wine in front of her. The first woman, sitting by the edge, is wearing a form-fitting dress and heels that look impractical for a long flight. Her profile is obscured by dark hair frozen in its big, fluffy state via half a can of hairspray. The woman beside her is shorter and slimmer and blonder. She’s dressed more casually in a black tank top, elephant-print harem pants, and brown sandals.

Jim approaches the brunette and addresses her: “Genie Shirman.”

Both of the women turn to face him. The blonde shifts forward so she see can see around her friend. Her delicately arched eyebrows knit together in study of him and his fresh bandages.

“You’re Genie,” he corrects himself. 

Genie nods. Her round forehead smoothes out, as if she has deemed Jim harmless.

He introduces himself to her and her new nose. It’s a good nose. Not better than before, in his opinion. Just different. There’s less of it.

“Pleased to meet you, James Gordon,” Genie says, just pleasantly enough.

The taller woman regards him in silence, unimpressed. There’s something colorful on the side of her neck, peeking out from behind her massive perm.

“You must be Aureliana," Jim says. Remembering his last conversation with Penguin, he's a touch amused. “Congratulations, by the way,” he adds, referring to their marriage.

That must have come out wrong, because Genie snaps back with, “Is there an issue?”

“It’s fine,” Aureliana tells her, adding a protective hand to the small of her back. “Private _Dick_ here meant no offense.”

Jim doesn’t like her disparaging tone. “So you faked your death and got yourself a new identity. How has that worked out for you?”

“Brilliantly. Dying absolved me of my crimes.” She tosses her hair aside, revealing the rose tattooed on her neck. “And it was no fake. Fish shot me in a real alley with a real bullet. Someone found me, got me an ambulance. I died on the way to the hospital. The doctor who revived me at the ER owed me a favor, so he got everyone out of the room and declared me dead. I got my hands on some new papers. So… here I am.”

He chews over his thoughts before asking, “Did you ever resent Fish for trying to kill you?”

She looks at him curiously. “No. In my death, I forgave her. So goes the code of honor. Besides, I don’t think she truly wanted me dead. Before she shot me, she quoted something at me from Hamlet - she’s a big Shakespeare buff, did you know? I don’t remember the exact line, but it was about love.” Her currant-red lips form a smile. Telling the story seems to have relaxed her. “Dying was great. I do recommend it. Dying was easier than getting the city of Gotham to agree to change my legal name and gender. Of course, now I have _another_ name coming.” She jostles Genie with her shoulder. “Thanks for the inconvenience, babe.”

“You’re welcome,” says Genie. “It’s only inconvenience from here on out, I can promise you that.”

Aureliana looks at her wife. One of those moon-drunk, fireside looks that would slow time down if you were on the receiving end of it. It’s such an intimate moment that Jim wonders if they forgot if he was there, if he should leave. But then, Aureliana mentions to him, “Before I died, I had planned on coming out as Felipa. When I came back to life, though, the first thing I thought of was Genie. I knew she was the one from our first date. We talked for hours, about everything, but especially about art. The way she got when she told me about her favorite painting from her childhood, all full of passion - it was adorable.”

“The lady and the knight on the battlefield,” he muses, “fighting a lion-scorpion monster.”

“Manticore,” Genie corrects him. “But yes, that’s the one. My father took me to Spain when I was a kid. There’s a street in Barcelona called La Rambla with lots of little markets. I saw that painting and fell in love with it. Begged my father for it. He thought it was hideous and refused. I was about to cry - I don’t know why, in that moment I was just obsessed with the painting. The artist was so, so to kind me. He cheered me up. Jokingly pointed out to my father that the lady in the painting looked like me. My father bought the painting, then, because of that. Funny thing is, I always thought of myself as the knight. The painting hung in my room ever since. I’ll never forget the artist’s name: Aureliano Castilla Calderón.”

Aureliana smiles at Genie. Then she says to Jim: “Now that we’ve scratched your itch, it’s your turn. Leonid hire you?”

“Yes.”

Aureliana makes a disgusted noise. “Typical of that old fuckerbitch to send someone else instead of getting involved. I suppose you’re here to drag us back to Shitham.” She lifts her glass of wine and takes a palate-cleansing swallow. 

“I’m not,” he assures both of them. “He wanted me to, but I’m not about to ruin your honeymoon.”

Genie pipes up, “Let me guess. He paid you half up front, and you get the other half when you bring me back.”

“That was the deal, yes.”

“That’s not standard, is it?” When he doesn’t answer right away, Genie adds, “It’s okay. I know it was an awful deal he made you.” 

She reaches for her purse, but Aureliana flaps a hand at her and retrieves her own wallet. She counts out eight one-hundred dollar bills which she proffers to him. “There, that should cover the second half.”

“I can’t accept that,” he mutters.

Aureliana huffs air out of her nose in a way that reminds him of Penguin. “Listen. I don’t want to start off my magical honeymoon tour of Southeast Asia with the burden of a favor hanging over me. Surely you understand that I am no longer in a position to offer my, ah, services?” She smirks. “Take the money. Now, while I’m still in a good mood from this ‘71 Riesling.”

Jim takes the money. It makes him feel dirty, not unlike his Penguin visits.

“There. Now my family doesn’t owe you anything,” she says.

Aureliana's phone buzzes from within her purse. While she checks it, Genie shifts on the stool, turning away from Jim. Now, that would be a cue for him to leave.

But Jim can’t help himself. “You wanted your father to find you.”

Aureliana glances up from her phone.

Genie’s left hand flies up to her mouth. Her diamond ring and band sparkle back and forth as she worries her lips with her fingernails. “He always did like a good brain exercise. Puzzles, crosswords, whatnot.” She yanks her left hand away from her mouth and clamps it down on her knee. Moving the worry to her leg, which starts bouncing restlessly. “But I... I’m not out here playing mind games with family. I didn’t just... leave cute little hints and clues”- her right hand makes a sprinkling motion in the air, cards through her hair, then finds a resting place at the back of her head.

Jim says: “He knew you were leaving Gotham because you told him.”

“I did. Before I left, I told him everything, to his face. That Aureliana was a woman, that we were back together and I was going to marry her.” Her fingers tighten at the scalp; she’s blinking rapidly. “I didn’t run away from home - he screamed at me to never come back. I mean, sure, I didn’t give the police much when they contacted me, but I guess I convinced them I was never abducted.” Genie tears a thick, tremulous laugh from the back of her throat; Aureliana’s hand moves to cover hers, comforting. “That day. He didn’t even want to hear where we were going, so I screamed it at him until he couldn’t ignore anymore - that’s how we communicate, you know. He couldn’t handle it, of course. So..."

He waits for her to continue, but she's clamped her mouth shut. “Your father. He’s…” he begins. Someone bumps his leg with their rolling suitcase. It’s enough to give him pause. Make him question if it’s his place to air the rest of that thought.

But it’s too late anyway. Genie stares at him, wide-eyed. She takes several huge, gulping breaths, and then her eyes spill over with tears. She sniffs, winces, sniffs again.

Aureliana produces a few tissues from her purse and offers them to her. “Remember, don’t blow, don’t rub.”

Genie accepts the tissues and dabs gingerly at the tip of her nose. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.” 

Aureliana stands up. Jim decides he would rather not be murdered at JFK. He mutters an apology and a goodbye and ducks away into a throng of people.

He’s just stepped onto a moving walkway when he hears Genie running after him.

“Wait!” she calls to him, but she doesn’t join him on the walkway. “How is he doing? Besides the…”

Jim stands in place as the conveyor steadily increases the distance between them. “I think he’s lonely,” he calls back. “He wants to see you.”

A harried-looking couple tuts at him for blocking their way. He begrudgingly moves to the right. Genie glances over her shoulder, then makes a frustrated noise and runs up to his side.

“Maybe…” Her hand tightens around a compacted ball of tissues. Her round-cut eyes glitter, but no further tears fall. “Maybe I’ll come back from this vacation anew. A better person, a forgiving one. If... if our new home in California gives me some perspective... maybe then I will consider.”

He nods. “I just remembered - I wanted to ask you something, too, Do you know anything about the boy that Leonid adopted?”

She shakes her head. “I only know that he was a bad egg. My father wouldn’t tell me anything about him. Oh! You know what... there was this one day - we were moving house - I was a kid, then. I found this wallet-size photo of a small boy. I don’t remember anymore what his face looked like, though I wish I could. But I knew...” A mischievous smile sneaks across her lips. “I knew I wasn’t supposed to have found that photo. So I hid it.”

“Where did you hide it?” he shoots back, so quickly that it makes Genie laugh.

“That I don’t remember, either. But I did think myself very clever for it.”


	12. occam, in the study, with the razor

Jim lets himself into Shirman’s office and greets him with, “Aureliana Rosales.”

The bewildered hotel owner looks up from his stack of papers. “Oh, Mr. Gordon. You have an update for me?”

“Aureliana Rosales,” Jim repeats. “That name mean anything to you?” He takes a seat and scoots up uncomfortably close to the desk.

Shirman narrows his rectangular eyes at him. “No. What are you talking about?”

“She’s Genie’s new wife. You knew they were getting married because Genie told you. You knew she was leaving because you kicked her out. Don’t bother denying it. I spoke with your daughter.”

A moment passes before Shirman speaks. 

“Only a few people know this about me: my memory is failing. Alzheimer’s Disease.” He takes in Jim’s neutral expression. “But you already knew.”

Jim nods. "Everything that happened with Genie and her now-wife... you tried to forget, but you couldn't. You hoped to soon be freed of that burden of knowledge.” He pauses. "She didn't want to come with me - and I don't know what you heard, but I don't have the authority to drag her back." He doesn't add, _There was a time when your influence would have bought you anything. Or so I heard._

Shirman's not looking at Jim anymore. He's staring blankly at the Icelandic puffin figurine laying on its side by the edge of the desk. Pushed over and aside by the spread of paperwork. When Jim reaches out and rights the figurine, Shirman doesn't react.

“Mr. Gordon, you are still young - although you might not believe it. Your life still has room for big hopes, good hopes. My life - not much room left. I am closing up. My wife is dead. My daughter is gone. My mind, I still have, but it is leaving, too. There will come a day when I don’t remember where I live, or recognize anyone I know. I won't be able to take care of myself. I might even forget my name, forget who I am. Do you understand, now, why I wanted my last memories to be good?”

“Our first meeting, you asked me if I have any children. I don’t, but it wasn’t too long ago that I was preparing to be a father. My fiancé at the time miscarried. She didn’t tell me the gender, or maybe she never found out, but I know it was a baby girl. We lost our daughter.” There's more he wants to say, but he ends with, "So, to answer your question: no. I don't understand." He stands up.

“Wait!” Shirman gets up from his chair as well. “Did she say she would come back? Evgeniya, is she coming to see me?”

“Maybe. She said she would think about it.”

“Would-would you help me? Please. Reach out to her, convince her. I won’t kick her out this time, but…” He leaves the rest unsaid and starts over with, “She got her love of travel from me, and now I may never see her again.” 

“Alright. I’ll help you,” Jim promises. “But I have some unanswered questions.”

"W-what do you need to know?”

Jim sits back down, cuing Shirman to do the same. “Did you ever have a son?” 

Shirman’s whole face sags, like Jim’s question has aged him five years. “Yes,” he grits out. “Viktor was his name.”

Jim folds his arms and waits.

“It’s a long story - a very long story, and you’re a busy man.”

“Best get started, then.”

Shirman takes a hoarse, dragging breath. Then he begins:

“I was young when I married my first wife, Lyuba. I was 20 and she was 25. She was ready to have a child, but I wasn’t. And then the Great Patriotic War - what you call World War II - happened, and it was no time for a baby to live - for anyone to live. I only survived, I believe, because I wasn’t conscripted - they assigned me to build tanks in factory instead. After the war, Lyuba still couldn’t conceive. I was secretly relieved. Everyone was poor, but I… I did what I had to do for my family. I was successful, even. When Lyuba and I were in our forties, we started to travel.”

“You went to Hungary,” Jim fills in, “in 1961.”

“Who is telling the story? I or you? Yes, in 1961, we went to Hungary on Lyuba’s request. We got lost in Budapest and ended up on the outskirts. There was old-looking building there, and in the front there was children playing outside on the grass. Lyuba got that look in her eye as she watched the kids play. You know, that soft look, the longing to have child. That’s when a woman approached us and started talking to us.”

“Do you speak Hungarian?”

“No. We both knew enough English to say the rough of what we meant. Turns out, the building was an orphanage, and she was headmistress. There was one little boy who was playing alone by himself. The headmistress noticed us watching him, so she called him over. His name was Viktor. He was smaller than the other children his age. So different, too.”

“He was charming, wasn’t he?”

“Very charming, very sweet. Headmistress explained that he had been there since he was a baby, but no one wanted to adopt him because he was small and sickly looking. And now that he was 6 years old and considered an older child, there was little hope of him ever being adopted. I told Lyuba that we had to adopt him, that special boy. She was hesitant, but I convinced her. We brought the boy back with us to Russia. And then. Well.” Shirman passes a hand over his face.

“Behavioral problems?”

“Many. He was smart kid, very good at math, but he had no interest in school. He didn’t get along with other children, not even after he learned Russian so fast. We started to give him rules, and suddenly he changed. He… he scared us. He liked to torture and kill small animals. When he was 9, he almost killed another child. We knew it wasn’t an accident. My wife begged me to take him back to the orphanage in Hungary. I told her that wasn’t right, that he wasn’t an animal to dump on the street - he was our son, our responsibility. So we fled to the United States, to California. I thought it would be a - how do you say… blank rock?”

“Clean slate.”

“Clean slate, ah, yes. I thought this would clean the slate for him. We settled in West Hollywood. It didn’t work. Viktor was only 11 when he got into violent crime. We couldn’t control him, and the stress broke my marriage with my wife. We were in process of getting divorced when Viktor ran away for good. He was 12. Then, I was alone in California with no wife and no son. But I did not grieve, as a father would. In a terrible way, I was relieved that he was gone. I had too many bad memories around me, so I moved to other side of country - to Gotham. Here is where I met my second wife, Esther Saltzman, and where Evgeniya was born.” 

“Do you think the headmistress knew what Viktor was like?”

“Oh, yes. I am not sure if she simply wanted to get rid of him on us, or if she had big hope that we could fix him. Either way, she saw a foreign face and took the chance. She did not tell us the truth about Viktor’s family - I had to find that myself. His mother... she was a mass murderer and serial killer. She was pregnant with him when she murdered her whole family, and she wasn’t caught right away, so she kept killing after Viktor was born. When he was one, she was given death penalty, and it made him an orphan. That, I believe, is the real reason no one adopted him.”

“Have you ever tried to contact him since? Or he you?”

“No, not at all. If he is even still alive out there, perhaps he is going by a different name. I gave him my last name when I adopted him - a fresh start, you see. But during the time we were in LA, he began insisting that we call him by his birth name, which was-”

“Zsasz,” Jim fills in, “after his mother, Anna Szazs.”

“What? No, no no. His birth name was Viktor Báthory, and his mother was Anna Báthory.” He pauses. “Are you alright? You look unwell.”

“I’m fine,” Jim says quickly. “Do you have a picture of him?” 

Shirman scratches the side of his nose. “I burned all pictures I had of him. Every last one.”

“Are you sure?”

Shirman frowns. “There was one photo of him, I remember, that I could never find. I figured it was lost in moving.”

Jim’s reply is immediate: “Do you mind if I take down that painting?”

“Oh, I thought it was ugly, too.” Shirman’s half-hearted chuckle trails off when Jim jumps out of his chair.

Jim grabs the painting - it’s heavy in the thick gilded frame - and unhooks it from the wall. He sets it upside down upon the stack of papers on the desk. There’s nothing on the back. He bends back all of the frame clips and lifts the frame backing off the canvas.

Shirman makes a noise of surprise.

Jim holds up the wallet-size, black and white photo of the boy. Hair is blond, judging by its light shade, and eyes are light-colored as well. Freckles. Turned-up nose. Cleft chin.

“It’s not him,” Jim says to himself. Then, to Shirman: “Did he always look like this?”

Shirman’s thick brows meet each other. “Well, he did grow up and...”

Jim shakes his head like clearing a mental Etch-a-Sketch. “Never mind. That was a stupid question.” He starts putting the painting back in the frame but hesitates over the boy’s photograph. “You don’t mind if I…?”

Shirman waves his hand. “Please. There are too many ghosts in here.”

Jim tucks the photo away in his wallet, after which, he resumes re-framing the painting and hanging it back on the wall.

When he’s done, Shirman quietly asks, “This Zsasz person - what is he to you?”

Jim smiles to himself. “A fresh start.”


	13. oswald that ends well

Power lines crackle and hum in the hot, breath-like humidity between scattered sun showers. Some of the wires sag with the weight of hanging sneakers. Another sunshower breaks through while Jim is parking his car. It's a short, sweaty swim to Victor’s front door.

Victor opens the door in a blast of AC. No arcane suit of cloth today - he’s in a simple black cut-off shirt and ripped jeans with more rip than jean. Hanging quietly from his neck is a long silver necklace with a single spike pendant. Hanging loudly from his mouth is a lit menthol.

“Aw, Jamie," he smokes out. "You’re supposed to wear _clothes_ when you go out in public.”

In defense of the wifebeater doing duty as his shirt, Jim says, “Shut up. Like you’re all dressed up." He nabs the cigarette from Victor’s mouth. 

Victor Zsasz’s apartment looks like half a person lives there. Like it was empty until a realtor came in, staged it for a showing, then disappeared fifty percent of the furniture pieces with a snap of her fingers. What’s left behind are shades of white and gray and taupe and tiny starbursts of green from desert plants. Almost no black to be seen.

On the wall shelf by Jim’s head is a surly little cactus wearing a pink flower as a hat. He pokes one of the spines. “How’s your…?” he starts to ask. 

Victor’s hand goes to his abdomen. While rubbing absently, he bares a grimace of sharp teeth, giving Jim the uncanny impression of a shark in his early stage of pregnancy. “Still healing. Hightailed it out of the hospital early, though, so I could sleep without being sedated.” He lets his hand fall and spares a glance at Jim’s still-healing temple and ear tip. “You?”

“Took the stitches out early. Got scars forming.”

“Good,” Victor says without irony. Then, he adds, “It’s been a while, huh? Hiding from me?”

“Couldn’t possibly. I’m in cardboard box hell. Just signed a lease for a new apartment so I’ve been packing nonstop. And working my cases, of course. Only one of them is infidelity-related, so things are looking…” He trails off in question. “...up.”

While Jim was talking, Victor had leaned in to admire his necklace. “This new?” he asks, fiddling with the thin leather cord.

“Nah, it’s old. Found it in the pocket of a messenger bag I was throwing out.” He pauses. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I’ll-”

Victor presses a finger against Jim’s lips, shushing him. “Sit,” he tells him, with a nod of his head toward the lone sofa, a loveseat. 

Jim takes a seat. And then he waits, because Victor has wandered off somewhere. To the kitchen, judging by the faint _clinks_ and faucet sounds. When Victor returns, he's holding two mismatched mugs steaming with black coffee. These go onto a coffee table of blue-green glass poured over layers of gnarled wood. He plops down besides Jim and folds his legs into a black pretzel. His knee rests in Jim’s lap.

"You wanted to talk," he prompts Jim.

Cold air blasts from the ceiling vents onto Jim’s head. He maneuvers a sip of coffee without spilling or scalding himself. It tastes like soil, but in a good way. His thoughts crawl over one another. “Yes," he replies.

Victor nods. “Good talk.” He swallows hot coffee with impunity. His gaze makes a long arc from Jim, up and around the room, and back at Jim.

“What happened was.” Jim worries his knuckles against his teeth, muffling his next words. “I started to... But then I...” He ducks his head. His shoulders start to shake.

Slowly, gravely, Victor asks: “Jim? What’s wrong?”

Jim waves him off.

“All I need is a name,” he adds in a low voice.

“No,” Jim says abruptly. He straightens up and physically wipes the grin off his face with his hand, but his eyes still crinkle with laughter. “I _thought_ I found your family. Your estranged family right here in Gotham.”

Victor folds his arms and considers Jim openly. “You private eyed me.”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

“You know you could have just asked me, right?”

“I know. Tell me about your family. Please.”

“Let’s see. I was born in Hungary. My birth mother was a teenager at the time - she surrendered me to an orphanage and disappeared. I have no memories of that place because I was soon adopted by an American couple. Quite nice people, actually. They’re both dead now. Boating accident.” His eyes get a soft, fond look that Jim finds both unsettling and endearing. “Now. Tell me about the other me.”

Jim recounts the story and ends it with the wallet photo of Viktor Shirman. His nerves are live wires. That coffee was _strong._ “Do you want to know about my family?” he offers half-heartedly.

To his relief, Victor makes a disgusted face. “God, no! Why would you say something like that?”

After a moment of quiet, Jim thinks aloud: “That day, when you refused to go with me to Seaview Hotel…”

“Seaview is haunted - very haunted.” Victor blinks at him. “You didn’t get that vibe at all?”

“No,” Jim admits. “I knew it used to be an abandoned hospital, but it certainly doesn’t look that way, anymore…” he rambles, trying to talk away the eerie sensation crawling over his neck. “When you let me go into Blue Moon alone and then came back. You went to complete a job, correct? Just… just answer yes or no.”

“Two separate jobs, actually.” Victor jostles Jim with his knee and adds, “Mark Mallory. He"-

-"Was a lone wolf,” Jim supplies.

Victor taps him on the cheek - playfully, which is not to say that it doesn’t smart. “Like that, did you?” Victor grins. “Don’t interrupt me next time. Or, I guess, _do_ interrupt me next time. Anyway. _Mark Mallory._ He’s from a mixed race family. His mother is white and his father was black. Mark was always afraid of cops, as a kid. But after several of his family members were gunned down by GCPD - including his father, whose death he witnessed - his fear became a debilitating phobia. He sought help and ended up receiving, ah, controversial therapy for his phobia. Real sketchy stuff. And so…” Victor aims two fingers in the shape of a gun at Jim’s forehead. 

“...He faced his fears,” Jim mutters. “At the abandoned Nolan's Brewery... you were in trouble for killing Psychic, weren't you?" 

Victor nods. “I saw Psychic beat a dog, so I killed him. Ironic how he didn’t see that coming. Then I took my Level 1 Hit Fee from his wallet and donated it to the city animal shelter - I had just raised my rates, too, so that was a good day. Should I have done it?” He makes a Robert De Niro-esque gesture of ambivalence. “Was it worth it? Yes. Animal abusers are scum.”

“One last thing. I’m certain Penguin was behind my apartment break-in. Only thing is, I don’t know"- he cuts himself off. “His mother’s deathiversary. How did I forget?”

“Oh yeah. He just wanted to mess with you a little. He was jealous of you for occupying my time when I was supposed to be consoling him. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was jealous of me, too.”

“You, uh, console him often?”

“Not so much these days.” He purses his lips. “You’re one to talk.”

_Everyone has a Cobblepot._

“You know why I like you?" Victor adds. "Because you lived up to the hype: you really are the best lay in the GCPD. Out of a sample size of _mmph"-_

With his hand clapped over Victor’s mouth, Jim growls, “Alright. Confessional's closed for the day.”

Victor, who’s partly smushed into the sofa by Jim’s force, manages to nod once. Keeping his hand in place, Jim swings his leg around so that he’s straddling Victor’s lap. Victor winces.

“Sorry. I forgot…” Jim moves his hand away from Victor’s mouth and tries to climb off, but Victor grabs him and holds him in place.

“Don’t"- his fingers are digging into Jim’s thigh -"you be gentle with me now, James Gordon.” 

Jim settles back into his lap. Victor’s hands, strong and starred with calluses from shooting, slide underneath Jim’s shirt and push it up, exposing hot skin to the cold air. Jim rolls his hips, working Victor into a better position. He alternates between kissing Victor’s lips and nipping at his neck and collarbone.

After a moment, Jim’s grip on Victor starts going slack. Victor nudges Jim’s face aside and says against his jaw, “What are you thinking about?”

“Harvey.”

Victor goes still against him.

“Not like that. He keeps saying that I should rejoin the GCPD. But…”

“But I’m the freak show in your way,” Victor says evenly.

“Smokeshow,” Jim amends.

Victor lets himself be kissed, a slow and electric push-pull. Then, he nudges Jim again. “What are you going to do?” he whispers, breathless.

Jim straightens up. Takes it all in, calculating. Victor’s all-pupil eyes and kiss-swollen lips. The rise and fall of his chest. The room has grown dim, the sun choked by heavy gray clouds. Rain batters the window panes. There's a distant rumble of thunder.

He rises, turns away and walks to the entrance of the hallway. Hair mussed and shirt rucked up, he stands there, undone, and watches bolts of lightning pierce the clouds beyond the window. At last, he looks over his shoulder and gestures with his head for Victor to follow him down. When Victor has caught up to him in the hallway, Jim places one hand against his chest and shoves him against the wall. Pins him there, closes in on him. Nose to nose. 

“I still feel you,” Jim tells him, “from two weeks ago.”

“Yeah?” he says archly.

The living room flashes white with a close strike of lightning - this chased by a blast of thunder. Something sizzles outside the window.

_“Yeah.”_

* * *

Three weeks later, Jim receives a “Greetings from Santa Monica” postcard from two Rosales-Shirmans.

Victor is still there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [talk to me about gorzsasz (or anything) on tumblr](http://nocandyforsadkids.tumblr.com)
> 
> [my got ham playlist, should you desire to punish your ears for 6+ hours](https://open.spotify.com/user/revengetragedy/playlist/3VSBdmQChrTlWEcNolWTZE?si=UJ9oZlO1TWK39vVHf_cuHw)


End file.
